Cosmology

There are two very different senses in which the term cosmology is used. Physical cosmology is the scholarly and academic study that seeks to understand the origin, evolution, structure, and ultimate fate of the universe at large, as well as the natural laws that keep it in order. The subject matter of this field is studied using scholarly methodology, including the scientific method and reason. It is studied by scientists, such as astronomers, and theoretical physicists; and academic philosophers, such as metaphysicians, philosophers of physics, and philosophers of space and time. Modern cosmology is dominated by the Big Bang theory, which attempts to bring together observational astronomy and particle physics. In contrast, religious cosmology (or mythological cosmology) is the study in the humanities, of the historical, mythological, religious, and esoteric literature and theories about eschatology (i.e. the end of the world), including such theories, as for instance apocalypticism.

Although the word cosmology is recent (first used in 1730 in Christian Wolff's Cosmologia Generalis), the study of the universe has a long history involving science, philosophy, esotericism and religion. Related studies include cosmogony, which focuses on the origin of the Universe, and cosmography, which maps the features of the Universe. Cosmology is also connected to astronomy. However, they are contrasted in that while the former is concerned with the Universe as a whole, the latter deals with individual celestial objects.