Universe
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

Flammarion engraving, a wood engraving by an unknown artist, so named because its first documented appearance is in Camille Flammarion's 1888 book L'atmosphère: météorologie populaire ("The Atmosphere: Popular Meteorology").

Magnum Chaos (c. 1524 ) by Lorenzo Lotto
"Before the ocean and the earth appeared— before the skies had overspread them all— the face of Nature in a vast expanse was naught but Chaos uniformly waste. It was a rude and undeveloped mass, that nothing made except a ponderous weight; and all discordant elements confused, were there congested in a shapeless heap." (trans. Brookes More)
"Before the ocean and the earth appeared— before the skies had overspread them all— the face of Nature in a vast expanse was naught but Chaos uniformly waste. It was a rude and undeveloped mass, that nothing made except a ponderous weight; and all discordant elements confused, were there congested in a shapeless heap." (trans. Brookes More)
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Featured: ![]() Kunstformen der Natur (1904) by Ernst Haeckel |
The Universe is commonly defined as the totality of existence, including planets, stars, galaxies, the contents of intergalactic space, and all matter and energy.
Similar terms include the cosmos, the world and nature.
There are many competing theories about the ultimate fate of the universe. Physicists remain unsure about what, if anything, preceded the Big Bang. Many refuse to speculate, doubting that any information from any such prior state could ever be accessible. There are various multiverse hypotheses, in which physicists have suggested that the Universe might be one among many universes that likewise exist.
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See also
- Cosmic latte
- Cosmology
- Hindu cosmology
- Clockwork universe
- Dyson's eternal intelligence
- Esoteric cosmology
- False vacuum
- Final anthropic principle
- Fine-tuned Universe
- Hindu cycle of the universe
- Jain cosmology
- Kardashev scale
- The Mysterious Universe (book)
- Nucleocosmochronology
- Non-standard cosmology
- Observable universe
- Omega Point
- Rare Earth hypothesis
- Religious cosmology
- Universe of discourse
- Universal
- University
- Vacuum genesis
- World view
- Zero-energy Universe
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