Copernican principleIn physical cosmology, the Copernican principle states that humans, on the Earth or in the Solar System, are not privileged observers of the universe, that observations from the Earth are representative of observations from the average position in the universe. Named for Copernican heliocentrism, it is a working assumption that arises from a modified cosmological extension of Copernicus' argument of a moving Earth.
Distance measureDistance measures are used in physical cosmology to give a natural notion of the distance between two objects or events in the universe. They are often used to tie some observable quantity (such as the luminosity of a distant quasar, the redshift of a distant galaxy, or the angular size of the acoustic peaks in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) power spectrum) to another quantity that is not directly observable, but is more convenient for calculations (such as the comoving coordinates of the quasar, galaxy, etc.
Buddhist cosmologyBuddhist cosmology is the description of the shape and evolution of the Universe according to Buddhist scriptures and commentaries. It consists of a temporal and a spatial cosmology. The temporal cosmology describes the timespan of the creation and dissolvement of alternate universes in different aeons. The spatial cosmology consists of a vertical cosmology, the various planes of beings, into which beings are reborn due to their merits and development; and a horizontal cosmology, the distribution of these world-systems into an infinite sheet of existential dimensions included in the cycle of samsara.
Loop quantum cosmologyLoop quantum cosmology (LQC) is a finite, symmetry-reduced model of loop quantum gravity (LQG) that predicts a "quantum bridge" between contracting and expanding cosmological branches. The distinguishing feature of LQC is the prominent role played by the quantum geometry effects of loop quantum gravity (LQG). In particular, quantum geometry creates a brand new repulsive force which is totally negligible at low space-time curvature but rises very rapidly in the Planck regime, overwhelming the classical gravitational attraction and thereby resolving singularities of general relativity.
Permutation matrixIn mathematics, particularly in matrix theory, a permutation matrix is a square binary matrix that has exactly one entry of 1 in each row and each column and 0s elsewhere. Each such matrix, say P, represents a permutation of m elements and, when used to multiply another matrix, say A, results in permuting the rows (when pre-multiplying, to form PA) or columns (when post-multiplying, to form AP) of the matrix A.
