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Glossary
The Perfect Cosmological Principle
The Perfect Cosmological Principle is an extension of the
Copernican Cosmological Principle
and is that not only
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on a large scale, the universe is both homogeneous
and isotropic,
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but also that
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the universe presents a similar aspect when viewed from any point
in space AND time.
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Rationale/Implications
The Perfect Cosmological Principle(s)
is very attractive/useful from a philosophical point of view.
It removes the necessity for having to deal with the birth/death of
universe (and the corresponding philosophical issues of
what happened before, what caused the birth, etc).
The Universe is and has always been.
This principle is a fundamental assumption of the
Steady-State Cosmological Theory.
This principle therefore takes the opposite view of the
Anthropic Cosmological Principle(s)
An Analogy
A (small) sentient being living in the center of a "perfect" loaf of bread.
- There may be obvious structure on small scales (air bubbles etc),
but on the large
scale the loaf can be considered uniform and
isotropic
- The laws of physics (e.g. which caused the dough to rise)
are the same throughout the loaf.
- However, contrary to the case for the
Copernican Cosmological Principle
the loaf has always (& will always) exist with the
same characteristics as a function of time.
- So if the loaf appears still be rising,
(which in this perfect loaf) this happens uniformly
& following the same laws throughout the
loaf), then
the density of the loaf must remain constant, thus
bread-particles must spontaneously appear to compensate
for the expansion.
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