World Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! === Scientific cosmology === Scientific cosmology can be defined as the science of the universe as a whole. In it, the terms "[[universe]]" and "[[cosmos]]" are usually used as synonyms for the term "world".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Bolonkin |first1=Alexander |title=Universe, Human Immortality and Future Human Evaluation |date=26 December 2011 |publisher=Elsevier |isbn=978-0-12-415801-6 |page=3 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TuWQx58ZnPsC |language=en}}</ref> One common definition of the world/universe found in this field is as "[t]he totality of all space and time; all that is, has been, and will be".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Zeilik |first1=Michael |last2=Gregory |first2=Stephen A. |title=Introductory Astronomy & Astrophysics |publisher=Saunders College Pub. |isbn=978-0-03-006228-5 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iH7vAAAAMAAJ |language=en |chapter=Glossary|year=1998 }}</ref><ref name="Sandkühler"/><ref name="Mittelstraß"/> Some definitions emphasize that there are two other aspects to the universe besides spacetime: forms of energy or matter, like stars and particles, and laws of nature.<ref name="Duco">{{cite book |last1=Schreuder |first1=Duco A. |title=Vision and Visual Perception |date=3 December 2014 |publisher=Archway Publishing |isbn=978-1-4808-1294-9 |page=135 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=I7a7BQAAQBAJ |language=en}}</ref> World-conceptions in this field differ both concerning their notion of spacetime and of the contents of spacetime. The [[theory of relativity]] plays a central role in modern cosmology and its conception of space and time. A difference from its predecessors is that it conceives space and time not as distinct dimensions but as a single four-dimensional manifold called [[spacetime]].<ref name="Fraassen">{{cite journal |last1=Fraassen |first1=Bas C. van |title='World' is Not a Count Noun |journal=Noûs |date=1995 |volume=29 |issue=2 |pages=139–157 |doi=10.2307/2215656 |jstor=2215656 |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/VANWIN}}</ref> This can be seen in [[special relativity]] in relation to the [[Minkowski metric]], which includes both spatial and temporal components in its definition of distance.<ref name="Zeilik25"/> [[General relativity]] goes one step further by integrating the concept of [[mass]] into the concept of spacetime as its curvature.<ref name="Zeilik25">{{cite book |last1=Zeilik |first1=Michael |last2=Gregory |first2=Stephen A. |title=Introductory Astronomy & Astrophysics |publisher=Saunders College Pub. |isbn=978-0-03-006228-5 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iH7vAAAAMAAJ |language=en |chapter=25. Cosmology: The Big Bang and Beyond|year=1998 }}</ref> [[Quantum cosmology]] uses a classical notion of spacetime and conceives the whole world as one big [[wave function]] expressing the probability of finding particles in a given location.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Dongshan |first1=He |last2=Dongfeng |first2=Gao |last3=Qing-yu |first3=Cai |title=Spontaneous creation of the universe from nothing |journal=Physical Review D |year=2014 |volume=89 |issue=8 |page=083510 |doi=10.1103/PhysRevD.89.083510 |arxiv=1404.1207 |bibcode=2014PhRvD..89h3510H |s2cid=118371273 }}</ref> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page