ABSTRACT
The cosmologies of primitive social communities were extremely local, tightly based on their local surroundings. Ancient cosmology is profoundly anthropomorphic. The problem of measuring distances, and of accepting a universe that is outrageously much bigger than the length scales we experience in everyday life, was one of the crucial obstacles for the advent of a modern cosmological description. In 1917 A. Einstein, starting from the perfect cosmological principle as a simplifying working hypothesis, derived the first cosmological solution within general relativity: Einstein's static model. Yakov Zel'dovich, in collaboration with Semjon S. Gershtein showed that, from cosmological considerations, it was possible to draw conclusions on yet laboratory untested elementary particle properties. Important breakthrough in cosmology took place when it became clear that the physics of the early universe is tightly connected to microphysics. It is then possible to reconstruct the history of the early universe by inserting our knowledge of nuclear and elementary particle physics in the cosmological picture.
