29-495: George Ellis may refer to: George F. R. Ellis (born 1939), South African cosmologist and mathematician George Ellis (poet) (1753–1815), English poet George F. Ellis (1903–1972), American cattleman and author George Henry Ellis (1875–1898), U.S. Navy sailor during the Spanish–American War George R. Ellis (born 1937), author, art historian and director of
58-404: A "historical science" because "when we look out in space, we look back in time" due to the finite nature of the speed of light . Physics and astrophysics have played central roles in shaping our understanding of the universe through scientific observation and experiment. Physical cosmology was shaped through both mathematics and observation in an analysis of the whole universe. The universe
87-577: A guest speaker at the Nobel Conference in St. Peter, Minnesota . George Ellis has worked for many decades on anisotropic cosmologies ( Bianchi models ) and inhomogeneous universes , and on the philosophy of cosmology. He is currently writing on the emergence of complexity, and the way this is enabled by top-down causation in the hierarchy of complexity . Recently Ellis has also collaborated with Teppo Felin , Denis Noble , and Jan Koenderink on
116-461: A largely speculative science into a predictive science with precise agreement between theory and observation. These advances include observations of the microwave background from the COBE , WMAP and Planck satellites, large new galaxy redshift surveys including 2dfGRS and SDSS , and observations of distant supernovae and gravitational lensing . These observations matched the predictions of
145-503: A physical mechanism for Kepler's laws and also allowed the anomalies in previous systems, caused by gravitational interaction between the planets, to be resolved. A fundamental difference between Newton's cosmology and those preceding it was the Copernican principle —that the bodies on Earth obey the same physical laws as all celestial bodies. This was a crucial philosophical advance in physical cosmology. Modern scientific cosmology
174-551: A set of articles published in the journal Genome Biology. In terms of philosophy of science , Ellis is a Platonist . Ellis has over 500 published articles; including 17 in Nature . Notable papers include: In 2019 Rhodes University in Grahamstown announced it would award Ellis an honorary doctorate in laws (LLD, hc) Cosmology Cosmology (from Ancient Greek κόσμος (cosmos) 'the universe,
203-612: A system created by Mircea Eliade and his colleague Charles Long. Cosmology deals with the world as the totality of space, time and all phenomena. Historically, it has had quite a broad scope, and in many cases was found in religion. Some questions about the Universe are beyond the scope of scientific inquiry but may still be interrogated through appeals to other philosophical approaches like dialectics . Some questions that are included in extra-scientific endeavors may include: Charles Kahn, an important historian of philosophy, attributed
232-614: Is a sub-branch of astronomy that is concerned with the universe as a whole. Modern physical cosmology is dominated by the Big Bang Theory which attempts to bring together observational astronomy and particle physics ; more specifically, a standard parameterization of the Big Bang with dark matter and dark energy , known as the Lambda-CDM model. Theoretical astrophysicist David N. Spergel has described cosmology as
261-590: Is considered one of the world's leading theorists in cosmology . From 1989 to 1992 he served as president of the International Society on General Relativity and Gravitation . He is a past president of the International Society for Science and Religion . He is an A-rated researcher with the NRF . Ellis, an active Quaker , was a vocal opponent of apartheid during the National Party reign in
290-693: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages George F. R. Ellis George Francis Rayner Ellis , FRS , Hon. FRSSAf (born 11 August 1939), is the emeritus distinguished professor of complex systems in the Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics at the University of Cape Town in South Africa . He co-authored The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time with University of Cambridge physicist Stephen Hawking , published in 1973, and
319-474: Is generally understood to have begun with the Big Bang , followed almost instantaneously by cosmic inflation , an expansion of space from which the universe is thought to have emerged 13.799 ± 0.021 billion years ago. Cosmogony studies the origin of the universe, and cosmography maps the features of the universe. In Diderot 's Encyclopédie , cosmology is broken down into uranology (the science of
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#1732772826371348-550: Is widely considered to have begun in 1917 with Albert Einstein 's publication of his final modification of general relativity in the paper "Cosmological Considerations of the General Theory of Relativity" (although this paper was not widely available outside of Germany until the end of World War I ). General relativity prompted cosmogonists such as Willem de Sitter , Karl Schwarzschild , and Arthur Eddington to explore its astronomical ramifications, which enhanced
377-428: The University of Cape Town , where he graduated with honours in 1960 with a Bachelor of Science degree in physics with distinction . He represented the university in fencing, rowing and flying . While a student at St John's College, Cambridge , where he received a PhD in applied maths and theoretical physics in 1964, he was on college rowing teams . At Cambridge, Ellis served as a research fellow from 1965 to 1967,
406-457: The University of Hamburg , also in 1972. The following year, Ellis co-wrote The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time with Stephen Hawking , debuting at a strategic moment in the development of General Relativity Theory . In the following year, Ellis returned to South Africa to accept an appointment as professor of applied mathematics at the University of Cape Town , a position he held until his retirement in 2005. In 2005 Ellis appeared as
435-489: The cosmic inflation theory, a modified Big Bang theory, and the specific version known as the Lambda-CDM model. This has led many to refer to modern times as the "golden age of cosmology". In 2014, the BICEP2 collaboration claimed that they had detected the imprint of gravitational waves in the cosmic microwave background . However, this result was later found to be spurious: the supposed evidence of gravitational waves
464-795: The 1970s and 1980s, and it is during this period that Ellis's research focused on the more philosophical aspects of cosmology , for which he won the Templeton Prize in 2004. He was also awarded the Order of the Star of South Africa by Nelson Mandela in 1999. On 18 May 2007, he was elected a fellow of the British Royal Society . Born in 1939 to George Rayner Ellis, a newspaper editor, and Gwendoline Hilda MacRobert Ellis in Johannesburg, George Francis Rayner Ellis attended
493-726: The Honolulu Museum of Art George Edward Ellis (1814–1894), Unitarian clergyman and historian George Viner Ellis (1812–1900), British anatomist George Washington Ellis (1875–1919), African American attorney, writer, and speaker George Ellis (composer) (born 1964), Australian conductor and composer George Ellis (athlete) (1932–2023), English sprinter George Ellis (silversmith) (1863–1944), British silversmith See also [ edit ] George Agar-Ellis, 1st Baron Dover (1797–1833), English nobleman George Ellis Pugh , Democratic politician from Ohio Ellis (surname) [REDACTED] Topics referred to by
522-679: The ability of astronomers to study very distant objects. Physicists began changing the assumption that the universe was static and unchanging. In 1922, Alexander Friedmann introduced the idea of an expanding universe that contained moving matter. In parallel to this dynamic approach to cosmology, one long-standing debate about the structure of the cosmos was coming to a climax – the Great Debate (1917 to 1922) – with early cosmologists such as Heber Curtis and Ernst Öpik determining that some nebulae seen in telescopes were separate galaxies far distant from our own. While Heber Curtis argued for
551-463: The heavens), aerology (the science of the air), geology (the science of the continents), and hydrology (the science of waters). Metaphysical cosmology has also been described as the placing of humans in the universe in relationship to all other entities. This is exemplified by Marcus Aurelius 's observation that a man's place in that relationship: "He who does not know what the world is does not know where he is, and he who does not know for what purpose
580-515: The idea that spiral nebulae were star systems in their own right as island universes, Mount Wilson astronomer Harlow Shapley championed the model of a cosmos made up of the Milky Way star system only. This difference of ideas came to a climax with the organization of the Great Debate on 26 April 1920 at the meeting of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C. The debate
609-406: The same term This disambiguation page lists articles about people with the same name. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=George_Ellis&oldid=1139369459 " Category : Human name disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description
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#1732772826371638-730: The science of astronomy , cosmology is concerned with the study of the chronology of the universe . Physical cosmology is the study of the observable universe 's origin, its large-scale structures and dynamics, and the ultimate fate of the universe , including the laws of science that govern these areas. It is investigated by scientists, including astronomers and physicists , as well as philosophers , such as metaphysicians , philosophers of physics , and philosophers of space and time . Because of this shared scope with philosophy , theories in physical cosmology may include both scientific and non-scientific propositions and may depend upon assumptions that cannot be tested . Physical cosmology
667-536: The world exists, does not know who he is, nor what the world is." Physical cosmology is the branch of physics and astrophysics that deals with the study of the physical origins and evolution of the universe. It also includes the study of the nature of the universe on a large scale. In its earliest form, it was what is now known as " celestial mechanics ," the study of the heavens . Greek philosophers Aristarchus of Samos , Aristotle , and Ptolemy proposed different cosmological theories. The geocentric Ptolemaic system
696-776: The world' and λογία (logia) 'study of') is a branch of physics and metaphysics dealing with the nature of the universe , the cosmos . The term cosmology was first used in English in 1656 in Thomas Blount 's Glossographia , and in 1731 taken up in Latin by German philosopher Christian Wolff in Cosmologia Generalis . Religious or mythological cosmology is a body of beliefs based on mythological , religious , and esoteric literature and traditions of creation myths and eschatology . In
725-798: Was assistant lecturer in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics until 1970, and was then appointed university lecturer, serving until 1974 . Ellis became a visiting professor at the Enrico Fermi Institute at the University of Chicago in 1970, a lecturer at the Cargese Summer School in Corsica in 1971 and the Erice Summer School in Sicily in 1972, and a visiting H3 professor at
754-659: Was in fact due to interstellar dust. On 1 December 2014, at the Planck 2014 meeting in Ferrara , Italy , astronomers reported that the universe is 13.8 billion years old and composed of 4.9% atomic matter , 26.6% dark matter and 68.5% dark energy . Religious or mythological cosmology is a body of beliefs based on mythological , religious , and esoteric literature and traditions of creation and eschatology . Creation myths are found in most religions, and are typically split into five different classifications, based on
783-587: Was proposed by the Belgian priest Georges Lemaître in 1927 which was subsequently corroborated by Edwin Hubble 's discovery of the redshift in 1929 and later by the discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation by Arno Penzias and Robert Woodrow Wilson in 1964. These findings were a first step to rule out some of many alternative cosmologies . Since around 1990, several dramatic advances in observational cosmology have transformed cosmology from
812-540: Was resolved when Edwin Hubble detected Cepheid Variables in the Andromeda Galaxy in 1923 and 1924. Their distance established spiral nebulae well beyond the edge of the Milky Way. Subsequent modelling of the universe explored the possibility that the cosmological constant , introduced by Einstein in his 1917 paper, may result in an expanding universe , depending on its value. Thus the Big Bang model
841-402: Was the prevailing theory until the 16th century when Nicolaus Copernicus , and subsequently Johannes Kepler and Galileo Galilei , proposed a heliocentric system. This is one of the most famous examples of epistemological rupture in physical cosmology. Isaac Newton 's Principia Mathematica , published in 1687, was the first description of the law of universal gravitation . It provided
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