Cosmology, Relativity, and Gravity Commons^™

Infinite Line, Infinite Knowledge: The 'Spera' And Organized Chaos In Lambert's Encyclopedia, The 'Liber Floridus', Ava Romano

Theses and Dissertations

The Liber Floridus is a medieval encyclopedia renowned for its program of circular diagrams, or sperae. Inside this manuscript of 190 chapters, these diagrams frame and embody written knowledge, revealing a connection between encyclopedism and life in the Benedictine monastery by creating a coherent visual organization of chapters.

Universe Without A Cause: A Reply To David Lu, Daniel Linford

Philosophy Faculty Publications

David Lu has recently argued that denying the Modified Causal Principle (MCP)—that if the universe began to exist, then it has a cause—leads to the conclusion that we likely inhabit an Omphalos universe, one that began recently with the appearance of age. Lu goes on to argue that if the universe is likely Omphalos, then independent measurements of the universe’s age are unlikely to agree. I offer three families of objections. First, Lu’s probabilistic reasoning faces technical challenges and, even if those challenges are overcome, cannot rule out an Omphalos universe. Second, I propose an alternative hypothesis that does so. …

How It Will End: Physical And Philosophical Implications Of The Fate Of Our Universe, Alex Bittle '26

Honor Scholar Theses

What does physics have to say about the end of our universe? And what does it mean for us, if anything? Answering these questions requires an understanding of the so-called "lambda-cold dark matter" (ΛCDM) model of cosmology, which models the universe as containing an expanding pressure, Λ or dark energy, in a battle with the gravitational attraction provided by dark and regular matter. First, the physics (including observations and theory) of the ΛCDM, including the Big Bang and CMB, the inflationary period, and equations that govern the way the size of the universe changes with respect to time for different …

The World As We Know It: Maps And Atlases From Special Collections, Archives And Special Collections, Luke Meagher

Library Exhibits

Selections of maps and atlases from Sandor Teszler Library’s Special Collections are presented in this exhibit to show how, over time, cartographers have represented the world as we know it.

Edgar Allan Poe’S Cosmology And Natural Theology: A Constructive Postmodern Appreciation, Theodore Walker

Perkins Faculty Research and Special Events

Contrary to some literary classifications, Edgar Allan Poe’s book-length prose poem Eureka is not intended to be fiction. In Eureka Poe was seriously attempting to advance ‘truth’ about the universe. Poe was doing natural science and poetry in the tradition of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and other natural philosophers. Poe’s prose poem is natural scientific astronomy and cosmology, plus natural theology, not science fiction.

Better Together

DePaul Magazine

Faculty have taken full advantage of the university's innovative intercollegiate grant program, and the resulting research is as interesting and diverse as the collaborators themselves. What is resulting is research on "Patient and Primary Care Provider Perspectives on Recreational and Therapeutic Cannabis Use Within a Changing Socioculltural and Political Context;" a new minor in climate change science and policy; a new class, Communication, Coding and Entrepreneurship; brain inflammation research; and the project "Cosmology Meets Continental Philosophy: Natural Laws and Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing"

Models Of Time Travel And Their Consequences, Antonio M. Mantica

Oglethorpe Journal of Undergraduate Research

How do we travel through time? We know that we can move forward in it (we have no choice), but can we jump forward in time? Can we go backward in time? It also gives rise to other troubling questions: is time measurable in distinct increments, or does it flow continuously? In "Models of Time Travel and their Consequences," Antonio Mantica walks the reader through current understandings of how time functions in Einstein's universe and proposes three distinct models to explain it. Following that, he provides a list of experiments to credit or discredit the models. Appropriate for audiences of …

The Fine-Tuning Of Nomic Behavior In Multiverse Scenarios, Max Lewis Edward Andrews

Masters Theses

The multiverse hypothesis (the view that there is not just one world or universe in existence, bur rather that there are many) is the leading alternative to the competing fine-tuning hypothesis (the laws of physics and constants are fine-tuned for the existence of life). The multiverse dispels many aspects of the fine-tuning argument by suggesting that there are different initial conditions in each universe, varying constants of physics, and the laws of nature lose their known arbitrary values; thus, making the previous single-universe argument from fine- tuning incredibly weak. The position that will be advocated will be that a form …

Purification By Fire : 2 Peter 3 And The Stoic Cosmos, Peter G. Speiser

Master of Arts Theses

No abstract provided.

Navigating The Starless Night: Strategies For Understanding Autobiogeography, Matthew Wolf-Meyer, Davin Heckman

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

Ancient mapmakers relied upon the presence of celestial bodies for their conceptualization of the world, for their external knowledge-making tools, as if a far-off body could help to make sense of our terrestrial life/as if it couldn't. Cosmology, as a practice, relied on the construction of an external body of knowledge that the local meaning-maker could situate him- or herself into, and more broadly, their entire society and culture -- the interior is determined by its relationship to the exterior (or the exteriorized). For the ancient Greeks then, the font of Western culture, this cosmology works at once …