Cosmology

Cosmology (from Greek κοσμολογία - κόσμος, kosmos, "universe"; and -λογία, -logia, "study"), in strict usage, refers to the study of the Universe in its totality as it is now (or at least as it can be observed now), and by extension, humanity's place in it. Though 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. (See Cosmogony for the study of origins of the Universe and Cosmography for the features of the Universe.)

In recent times, physics and astrophysics have played a central role in shaping the understanding of the universe through scientific observation and experiment; or what is known as physical cosmology shaped through both mathematics and observation in the analysis of the whole universe. In other words, in this discipline, which focuses on the universe as it exists on the largest scale and at the earliest moments, it is generally understood to begin with the Big Bang (possibly combined with cosmic inflation) – an expansion of space from which the universe itself is thought to have emerged ~13.7±0.2×109

(roughly 13.5-13.9 billion) years ago.