Search results for "Copernican principle"
showing 4 items of 4 documents
Impact of cosmic inhomogeneities on SNe observations
2009
We study the impact of cosmic inhomogeneities on the interpretation of SNe observations. We build an inhomogeneous universe model that can confront supernova data and yet is reasonably well compatible with the Copernican Principle. Our model combines a relatively small local void, that gives apparent acceleration at low redshifts, with a meatball model that gives sizeable lensing (dimming) at high redshifts. Together these two elements, which focus on different effects of voids on the data, allow the model to mimic the concordance model.
A Place for Life
2010
The belief in the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations starts from the so-called principle of mediocrity. This principle postulates that Earth is a normal planet that rotates around a normal star, which in turn is located in a normal galaxy. That is to say, there is nothing so special in our world as to make it unique. This is a logical conclusion, toward which we are guided by the successive “Copernican turns” that science has suffered throughout its long history, and which has removed us from the central position we once believed to occupy in the universe.
Observational constraints on inhomogeneous cosmological models without dark energy
2011
It has been proposed that the observed dark energy can be explained away by the effect of large-scale nonlinear inhomogeneities. In the present paper we discuss how observations constrain cosmological models featuring large voids. We start by considering Copernican models, in which the observer is not occupying a special position and homogeneity is preserved on a very large scale. We show how these models, at least in their current realizations, are constrained to give small, but perhaps not negligible in certain contexts, corrections to the cosmological observables. We then examine non-Copernican models, in which the observer is close to the center of a very large void. These models can gi…
Introduction: The Pedagogical Obstacle of the Phenomenal Forms
2016
This book is a further development from a previous one, published only in Spanish, whose title can be translated as The Copernican turn and the social sciences (Villacanas de Castro, 2013). It was a philosophical work relating to a general epistemological problem lying at the heart of the social and natural sciences. On the other hand, the present volume is firmly rooted in pedagogy. This difference reflects the professional journey that I have made in the meantime, from being a Graduate Student at a Faculty of Philosophy to becoming a member of staff at a Faculty of Education, where I currently lecture and carry out research. Despite the various shifts brought about by this transition, an …