Astronomy & Space Science · AST-653
The Cosmological Principle: Physical Mechanisms
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Mechanism
Mechanism of The Cosmological Principle
If matter is distributed approximately uniformly on very large scales, general relativity permits a simple family of expanding geometries characterized by a scale factor and spatial curvature.
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- 01The Big Bang — SummaryOpen source ↗
OpenStax Astronomy 2e · Mar 9, 2022
View claim-by-claim traceability3 verified claims
Large galaxy surveys, the near-isotropy of the cosmic microwave background, and large-scale matter statistics support the principle beyond scales much larger than individual superclusters, despite obvious local structure.
supported · checked Sep 22, 2026The cosmological principle states that, on sufficiently large scales, the universe is statistically homogeneous and isotropic: no large region is fundamentally privileged and no direction is globally special.
supported · checked Sep 22, 2026If matter is distributed approximately uniformly on very large scales, general relativity permits a simple family of expanding geometries characterized by a scale factor and spatial curvature.
supported · checked Sep 22, 2026