A cosmologist is an astronomer who studies the evolution and space-time relations of the universe. Cosmology, once known as celestial mechanics, is the study of the universe in its totality and all of the relationships within it, including the exact place of humans in the grand scale of things. Cosmologist believe that the universe has been governed by physical laws since the big bang and will continue to be so ruled until its end.
In modern history, our beliefs about the universe have been shaped by scientific experiment and observation. This is called physical cosmology and usually includes study areas like astrophysics and astronomy. The old order of things usually included some sort of religious connotations and used the Bible and church writings to prove theories. This mixture of religion and physical science is called metaphysical cosmology. The desire of metaphysical cosmology is to understand the place of Man amongst God and all other entities in the universe.
Modern cosmology is widely believed to have originated when Albert Einstein published his theory of general relativity in 1917. General relativity prompted cosmologists to explore the astronomical consequences of the theory, which enhanced the growing ability of astronomers to study very distant objects. Prior to this physicists assumed that the Universe was static and unchanging. Modeling of the universe explored the possibility that the cosmological constant introduced by Einstein in his 1917 paper may result in an ever expanding universe. Based o n this, the big bang theory was proposed by Georges Lamaitre in 1927. That theory was corroborated when Edwin Hubble discovered of the red shift in 1929 and again by the discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation in 1964.
Here is a link that defines the evolution of cosmology. Here on Universe Today we have a great article about one of the discoveries that a cosmologist is looking for. Astronomy Cast offers a good episode about the different fields of astronomy.
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