A general test of the copernican principle

To date, there has been no general way of determining if the Copernican principle-that we live at a typical position in the Universe-is in fact a valid assumption, significantly weakening the foundations of cosmology as a scientific endeavor. Here we present an observational test for the Copernican assumption which can be automatically implemented while we search for dark energy in the coming decade. Our test is entirely independent of any model for dark energy or theory of gravity and thereby represents a model-independent test of the Copernican principle. © 2008 The American Physical Society.