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The anthropic principle, also known as the observation selection effect, is the proposition that the range of possible observations that could be made about the universe is limited by the fact that observations are possible only in the type of universe that is capable of developing intelligent life. Proponents of the anthropic principle argue ...
This concept, initially known as the "Primeval Atom" by Lemaitre, was later elaborated into the modern Big Bang theory. If the universe had expanded at a constant rate in the past, the age of the universe now (i.e. the time since the Big Bang) is simply proportional to the inverse of the Hubble constant, often known as the Hubble time.
When Einstein found that his general relativity equations could easily be solved in such a way as to allow the universe to be expanding at the present and contracting in the far future, he added to those equations what he called a cosmological constant — essentially a constant energy density, unaffected by any expansion or contraction ...
The Big Bounce hypothesis is a cosmological model for the origin of the known universe.It was originally suggested as a phase of the cyclic model or oscillatory universe interpretation of the Big Bang, where the first cosmological event was the result of the collapse of a previous universe.
Since the universe is expanding, the equation for that expansion can be "run backwards" to its starting point. The Lambda-CDM concordance model describes the expansion of the universe from a very uniform, hot, dense primordial state to its present state over a span of about 13.77 billion years [12] of cosmological time.
The portion of the universe that can be seen by humans is approximately 93 billion light-years in diameter at present, but the total size of the universe is not known. [3] Some of the earliest cosmological models of the universe were developed by ancient Greek and Indian philosophers and were geocentric, placing Earth at the center.
The Rare Earth hypothesis argues that planets with complex life, like Earth, are exceptionally rare.. In planetary astronomy and astrobiology, the Rare Earth hypothesis argues that the origin of life and the evolution of biological complexity, such as sexually reproducing, multicellular organisms on Earth, and subsequently human intelligence, required an improbable combination of astrophysical ...
An expanding universe typically has a finite age. Light, and other particles, can have propagated only a finite distance. The comoving distance that such particles can have covered over the age of the universe is known as the particle horizon, and the region of the universe that lies within our particle horizon is known as the observable universe.