The 2001 Paul Klopsteg memorial lecture: 'Cosmology: Man's place in the universe' (a deconstruction)

摘要

The history of the universe makes a reasonably coherent story, beginning with a hot, dense phase (the Big Bang), continuing with the formation and evolution of galaxies, stars, and planets, and reaching by now the appearance of life and intelligence (suitably defined). Some parts of the story, for instance, the evolution of stars, are well understood. Others are only fuzzy outlines (the formation of galaxies and the beginnings of life). All are heavily dependent upon the universe having key characteristics very close to the actual ones. These include the four forces of physics and about four cosmological parameters. CMPitU is a talk that tries to tell this story. The deconstruction addressed how much confidence we can place in the various chapters and variants in narrative technique. (C) 2002 American Association of Physics Teachers. [References: 10]