Philosophy of Physics Seminar (Thursday - Week 2, TT26)

Abstract: According to the standard model of cosmology, our large-scale universe today is Euclidean (flat, open space with infinite extent). Historically, this amounts to a pivot: at the dawn of the study of expanding universe cosmology, space was taken to be spherical. We examine when and how the pivot occurred. We argue that the pivot did not occur, as a standard story has it, with Einstein and de Sitter's early publication of their eponymous model. Rather, the Euclidean nature of our large-scale universe today became accepted as a learned fact when cosmic inflation came into the scene as a proposal about the early universe. We emphasize the role of Guth's landmark paper on cosmic inflation, which was framed in part in terms of its solving the so-called flatness problem, in establishing the reality of Euclidean space as an adequate description of the late-stage cosmos. Our reading of this history is further supported by the debates on the mass density of the universe among observational cosmologists through that same period.

Registration: If you do not hold a university card, please contact the seminar convenor or admin@philosophy.ox.ac.uk at least two working days before a seminar to register your attendance.