Burst 26 - The Cosmic Archipelago, Part 1.

Released: 21 January 2018

Duration: 19 minutes

 

A hundred years ago cosmologists were struggling to understand the nature and structure of the universe, and at the heart of this struggle was the island universe hypothesis.

Today we find ourselves confronted with a similar question posed at a far greater scale. As we confront these great questions of cosmology, whether a hundred years ago or today, we find ourselves faced with as many philosophical questions as scientific questions when we challenge the boundaries of our understanding. In Part I we focus on the original problems of constructing the cosmological distance ladder.

 

Links:

The Realm of the Nebula, Edwin Hubble

 

Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens, Immanuel Kant

 

The Great Debate

 

The Scale of the Universe, Shapley and Curtis

 

The 1920 Shapley-Curtis Discussion: Background,Issues, and Aftermath, V. Trimble

 

NGC 6822, a remote stellar system, Edwin Hubble

 

F. H. Bradley

 

deep time

 

Stellar Movements and the Structure of the Universe, Arthur Eddington

 

The Retrodiction Wall

 

Addendum on the Retrodiction Wall

 

Eternity in six hours: Intergalactic spreading of intelligent life and sharpening the Fermi paradox, Stuart Armstrong and Anders Sandberg

 

The End of Cosmology? Lawrence M. Krauss and Robert J. Scherrer

  Credits:

Writer and Host: Nick Nielsen

Producer and Voiceover: Paul Carr

Music: Jason Robinson