Anthropic Aspects

Abstract

Cosmology attempts to understand the observable metagalaxy as a representative part of the universe and as a necessary consequence of the laws that govern physical processes in this universe. How far have we got? Just through the claim that the metagalaxy represents the universe, one characteristic degree of freedom can be isolated - unexpectedly at first. This is the expansion parameter. With some success, cosmological models have been constructed that describe appropriately the large-scale behaviour beyond the observed structures and individual celestial objects. The stability considerations of the next step show, however, that in simple models the evolution of the expansion parameter is too unstable to yield a large-scale homogeneous picture. The characteristic indication is the stability of calculations into the past, which seems always to yield a cosmological singularity.