Cosmology Through Its Past

Abstract

One of the characters in the 1950s British comedy radio series, The Goon Show, once remarked that “Everybody’s got to be somewhere.” The answer to the question of where we are in the universe and how we got there has changed dramatically over the centuries. It is a question that all cultures try to answer in one way or another. We begin with a Native American myth and then discuss Greek thought and the idea of rational inquiry. The development of theories of planetary motion are discussed leading to the work of Isaac Newton. The implications of Newton’s theory for the idea of an infinite universe are presented. The telescope enters the stage, and we discuss its use in changing our view of the solar system. The discovery of nebulae by telescopic observations leads us to the story of how the nature of galaxies was revealed. We end with the discovery of the expanding universe and the idea of the Big Bang.

The Greeks were the first mathematicians who are still ‘real’ to us today…So Greek mathematics is permanent, more permanent even than Greek literature. Archimedes will be remembered when Aeschylus is forgotten because languages die and mathematical ideas do not.

G.H. Hardy, A Mathematician’s Apology