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The Anthropic Cosmological Principle

TL;DR: In this article, Barrow and Tipler examined the question of Mankind's place in the universe, taking the reader on a tour of many scientific disciplines and offering fascinating insights into issues such as the nature of life, the serach for extraterrestrial intelligence, and the past history and fate of our universe.
Abstract: Is there any connection between the vastness of the universes of stars and galaxies and the existence of life on a small planet out in the suburbs of the Milky Way? This book shows that there is. In their classic work, John Barrow and Frank Tipler examine the question of Mankind's place in the Universe, taking the reader on a tour of many scientific disciplines and offering fascinating insights into issues such as the nature of life, the serach for extraterrestrial intelligence, and the past history and fate of our universe.
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a review of the most important aspects of the different classes of modified gravity theories, including higher-order curvature invariants and metric affine.
Abstract: Modified gravity theories have received increased attention lately due to combined motivation coming from high-energy physics, cosmology, and astrophysics. Among numerous alternatives to Einstein's theory of gravity, theories that include higher-order curvature invariants, and specifically the particular class of $f(R)$ theories, have a long history. In the last five years there has been a new stimulus for their study, leading to a number of interesting results. Here $f(R)$ theories of gravity are reviewed in an attempt to comprehensively present their most important aspects and cover the largest possible portion of the relevant literature. All known formalisms are presented---metric, Palatini, and metric affine---and the following topics are discussed: motivation; actions, field equations, and theoretical aspects; equivalence with other theories; cosmological aspects and constraints; viability criteria; and astrophysical applications.

4,027 citations


Cites background from "The Anthropic Cosmological Principl..."

  • ...mological constant or to propose dynamical alternatives to dark energy. Unfortunately, none of these attempts are problem-free. For instance, the so-called anthropic reasoning for the magnitude of Λ (Barrow and Tipler, 1986; Carter, 1974), even when placed into the firmer grounds through the idea of the “anthropic or string landscape” (Susskind, 2003), still makes many physicists feel uncomfortable due to its probabilist...

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A review of cosmological constants can be found in this paper, where the authors discuss several aspects of the Cosmological Constant problem from both cosmology and theoretical perspectives.

3,130 citations


Cites background from "The Anthropic Cosmological Principl..."

  • ...The anthropic principle [277,278] is an interpretational paradigm which argues that, while discussing the origin of physical phenomena and the values of constants of nature, we must recognize the fact that only certain combination and range of values will lead to the existence of intelligence observers in the universe who could ask questions related to these issues....

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors review both observational and theoretical aspects of a small cosmological Λ-term and discuss the current observational situation focusing on cosmology tests of Λ including the age of the universe, high redshift supernovae, gravitational lensing, galaxy clustering and the cosmic microwave background.
Abstract: Recent observations of Type 1a supernovae indicating an accelerating universe have once more drawn attention to the possible existence, at the present epoch, of a small positive Λ-term (cosmological constant). In this paper we review both observational and theoretical aspects of a small cosmological Λ-term. We discuss the current observational situation focusing on cosmological tests of Λ including the age of the universe, high redshift supernovae, gravitational lensing, galaxy clustering and the cosmic microwave background. We also review the theoretical debate surrounding Λ: the generation of Λ in models with spontaneous symmetry breaking and through quantum vacuum polarization effects — mechanisms which are known to give rise to a large value of Λ hence leading to the "cosmological constant problem." More recent attempts to generate a small cosmological constant at the present epoch using either field theoretic techniques, or by modelling a dynamical Λ-term by scalar fields are also extensively discussed. Anthropic arguments favouring a small Λ-term are briefly reviewed. A comprehensive bibliography of recent work on Λ is provided.

2,531 citations


Cites background from "The Anthropic Cosmological Principl..."

  • ...Namely, by generalizing a physical theory (say, the electroweak model) with fixed constants into a more general theory where these constants may have arbitrary values depending upon initial conditions, we make a step from the strong to the weak anthropic principle (also see [20])....

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, a review of the physics and cosmology of the cosmological constant is presented, focusing on recent developments, and a pedagogical overview of cosmology in the presence of such a constant is given.
Abstract: This is a review of the physics and cosmology of the cosmological constant. Focusing on recent developments, I present a pedagogical overview of cosmology in the presence of a cosmological constant, observational constraints on its magnitude, and the physics of a small (and potentially nonzero) vacuum energy.

2,220 citations

01 Jan 1988
TL;DR: A monograph on inflationary cosmology and cosmological phase transitions is presented in this article, which investigates modern cosmology's relationship to elementary particle physics and includes a non-technical discussion of the theory for those unfamiliar with the theory.
Abstract: A monograph on inflationary cosmology and cosmological phase transitions, investigating modern cosmology's relationship to elementary particle physics. This work also includes a non-technical discussion of inflationary cosmology for those unfamiliar with the theory.

2,200 citations

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