Book contents
- The Cosmic Microwave Background
- The Cosmic Microwave Background
- Copyright page
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Physical cosmology: A brief introduction
- Part II Discovery of the CMB and current cosmological orthodoxy
- Part III What constitutes an unorthodoxy? An epistemological framework of cosmology
- Part IV Moderate unorthodoxies: The CMB with the Big Bang
- Part V Radical unorthodoxies: The CMB without the Big Bang
- Part VI Formation of the orthodoxy and the alternatives: Epistemological lessons
- Part VII Other philosophically relevant aspects of the CMB
- 28 CMB and Copernicanism
- 29 The “problem of other observers” and anthropic reasoning
- 30 The nature of boundary conditions in cosmology, the CMB, and the “laws of nature”
- 31 The CMB and the multiverse
- Book part
- Notes
- References
- Index
28 - CMB and Copernicanism
“The Axis of Evil” and “The Fingers of God”
from Part VII - Other philosophically relevant aspects of the CMB
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 July 2024
- The Cosmic Microwave Background
- The Cosmic Microwave Background
- Copyright page
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Physical cosmology: A brief introduction
- Part II Discovery of the CMB and current cosmological orthodoxy
- Part III What constitutes an unorthodoxy? An epistemological framework of cosmology
- Part IV Moderate unorthodoxies: The CMB with the Big Bang
- Part V Radical unorthodoxies: The CMB without the Big Bang
- Part VI Formation of the orthodoxy and the alternatives: Epistemological lessons
- Part VII Other philosophically relevant aspects of the CMB
- 28 CMB and Copernicanism
- 29 The “problem of other observers” and anthropic reasoning
- 30 The nature of boundary conditions in cosmology, the CMB, and the “laws of nature”
- 31 The CMB and the multiverse
- Book part
- Notes
- References
- Index
Summary
This chapter briefly discusses two recent, apparently visually tractable anomalies that challenge the Copernican principle whereby our location in the universe is not special. The radial grouping of galaxy clusters (and alleged distortion of the redshifts due to expansion), the “fingers of god,” indirectly challenges the orthodox interpretation of the CMB. A more recent anomaly, the “axis of evil,” points to the visually observable “conspiring” of interchanging hot and cold regions in the CMB to form an axis of anisotropy. The chapter discusses various responses and notes the epistemic standing of the challenges in comparison to the worked-out alternatives to the orthodox explanation of the CMB.
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- The Cosmic Microwave BackgroundHistorical and Philosophical Lessons, pp. 155 - 156Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2024