Cosmology Today Methods, Achievements, And Limits

2019.01.15 Scientific cosmology is based on an intricate interplay between theory and observation. There has been an extraordinary flood of data enabled by new technology and a variety of new telescopes that has enabled the determination of a remarkable Standard Model of Cosmology that is generally agreed. In that model, there is an intricate interaction of bottom up and top down causation. Local physics everywhere determine the large-scale evolution of the universe in a bottom-up way; that evolution acts in a top-down way to determine outcomes of local physics, which enable the universe to provide habitats for life such as the Solar System. This talk examines scientific cosmology with respect to the scope of the above topics. Speakers George Ellis, Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Complex Systems, Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics, University of Cape Town