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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 February 2023
The view of physics that is most generally accepted at the moment is that one can divide the discussion of the universe into two parts. First, there is the question of the local laws satisfied by the various physical fields. These are usually expressed in the form of differential equations. Secondly, there is the problem of the boundary conditions for these equations, and the global nature of their solutions. This involves thinking about the edge of spacetime in some sense. These two parts may not be independent. Indeed it has been held that the local laws are determined by the large scale structure of the universe. This view is generally connected with the name of Mach, and has more recently been developed by Dirac (1938), Sciama (1953), Dicke (1964), Hoyle and Narlikar (1964), and others. We shall adopt a less ambitious approach: we shall take the local physical laws that have been experimentally determined, and shall see what these laws imply about the large scale structure of the universe.
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