Abstract
We examine the necessary physical underpinnings for setting up the cosmological standard model with a global cosmic time parameter. In particular, we discuss the role of Weyl’s principle which asserts that cosmic matter moves according to certain regularity requirements. After a brief historical introduction to Weyl’s principle we argue that although the principle is often not explicitly mentioned in modern standard texts on cosmology, it is implicitly assumed and is, in fact, necessary for a physically well-defined notion of cosmic time. We finally point out that Weyl’s principle might be in conflict with the wide-spread idea that the universe at some very early stage can be described exclusively in terms of quantum theory.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank audiences at talks in Copenhagen, Dortmund, Granada, Heidelberg, Leeds, Oxford, and Utrecht for helpful comments. We also thank George Ellis and Erhard Scholz for comments on the manuscript. We finally thank the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (Project FFI2008-06418-C03-02) for financial support.
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Rugh, S.E., Zinkernagel, H. (2011). Weyl’s Principle, Cosmic Time and Quantum Fundamentalism. In: Dieks, D., Gonzalez, W., Hartmann, S., Uebel, T., Weber, M. (eds) Explanation, Prediction, and Confirmation. The Philosophy of Science in a European Perspective, vol 2. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-1180-8_28
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-1180-8_28
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