24 questions · 17 almanac · 0 findings

Cosmology

The origin, structure, and evolution of the universe.

Almanac Running the Film Backward to a Single Point
  • What relationship did Hubble find between a galaxy's distance and its recession velocity?
  • Why does an expanding universe imply that everything was once in the same place?
Almanac A Universe With No Moment of Creation
  • How did the steady-state model explain an expanding universe without a beginning?
  • Who independently proposed the steady-state theory in 1948, and how did their papers differ?
  • What evidence eventually disproved the steady-state model?
Almanac Inflation Is a Monetary Animal
  • What did Milton Friedman mean when he argued that inflation is 'always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon'?
Almanac The Universe's Age, to Two Percent
  • What age for the universe did WMAP's 2003 data establish, and how precise was that estimate?
  • What did the WMAP data confirm about cosmic inflation and the geometry of space?
Almanac The Universe Is Speeding Up, Not Down
  • How did astronomers use Type Ia supernovae to measure the expansion rate of the universe?
  • What is dark energy and how much of the universe's total energy does it make up?
Almanac Cosmic Dust, Mistaken for Creation
  • What did the BICEP2 team claim to have detected in the cosmic microwave background in March 2014?
  • What role did the Planck satellite's joint analysis play in retracting the BICEP2 claim?
Almanac A Universe Mapped, a Planet Found
  • What theoretical framework did James Peebles build to explain dark matter, dark energy, and the cosmic microwave background?
  • Why did the 2019 physics prize combine a theoretical cosmologist with two observational planet-hunters in one award?