ArticleBiz.com :: Free article content
Authors: Maximum article exposure. Publishers: Reprintable article content.  
BROWSE ARTICLES
ArticleBiz.com Home
Featured Articles
Recently Added Articles
Most Viewed Articles
Article Comments
Advanced Article Search
AUTHORS
Submit Article
Check Article Status
Author TOS
PUBLISHERS
RSS Article Feeds
Terms of Service

Book Review : The Uncertain Universe: The Quest for the Ultimate Limits of Human Knowledge
Home :: Arts & Entertainment :: Books & Music
By: Bruce Kriger Email Article
Word Count: 473 Digg it | Del.icio.us it | Google it | StumbleUpon it

  

Cosmology, as a science, limits itself to the study of the universe as a whole; its contents, structure, and evolution. Cosmological beliefs are based on the conclusions drawn from astronomical observations and mathematical models, but they still substantially influence the media and raise public interest. The study of cosmology has changed from a speculative enterprise into a data-driven science that is part of a modern standard physical theory and supported by a wealth of observations. Nevertheless some theoretical proposals are being made for the very early stages of the universe that have no observational support; and sometimes it may be impossible to ever obtain such. Thus in some respects it remains a principle driven enterprise, with observation subordinate to theory. Which means that the foundations of this science are inherently confined to some degree of speculation. We hope that our effort will escape the possible accusations in agnosticism and we will distant ourselves from the famous saying of Socrates "I know that I know nothing" by trying to estimate the true limits of our knowledge while appreciating tremendous progress of science that took place since the days of this great Greek thinker. The first difficulty that the philosophy of cosmology encounters is the uniqueness of the universe. The most fundamental issue is that there is only one universe. This essential uniqueness of its object of study sets cosmology apart from all other sciences. In particular, the unique initial conditions that led to the current state of the universe that we have the honor to observe today were somehow "set" by the time that physical laws as we know them started governing the evolution of both the universe and its contents. We are not able to alter these unique initial conditions in any way. They are given to us absolute and unchangeable. Although, so far there is no hard proof that ‘other universes" may exist and we have to stick to the statement that the universe we live in is unique at least from our point of view and we need to deal with philosophical implications of such approach. Unfortunately, like having only one pea, we have only one universe to study, and, moreover, that we can only partially observe. Because we cannot compare our universe with any other universes we are considerably limited in our ability to derive certain laws that would apply to the whole group of objects that we aren’t even sure exist. In this book we are going to undertake a breathtaking journey into the very roots of the philosophy of cosmology in order to rigorously appraise this degree of possible speculation. This will allow us to make an attempt to define the ultimate limits of human knowledge in order to form a sober view of what, exactly, we can and cannot know.

Bruce Kriger is a prolific scientific writer whose work has been published in a number of languages. He is a member of several associations. In 1996 he has formed his own organization called the Kriger Research Group bringing together other research organizations and training professionals for different scientific projects.

Article Source: http://www.ArticleBiz.com

This article has been viewed 81 times.

Rate Article
Rating: 0 / 5 stars - 0 vote(s).

Article Comments
There are no comments for this article.

Leave A Reply
 Your Name
 Your Email Address [will not be published]
 Your Website [optional]
 What is nine + eight? [tell us you're human]
Notify me of followup comments via email


Related Articles


Copyright © 2008 by ArticleBiz.com. All rights reserved.

Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | Contact Us | Submit Article | Editorial