Systematically explores the early origins and basic definition of life.

Investigates the major theories of the origins of life in light of modern research with the aim of distinguishing between the necessary and the optional and between deterministic and random influences in the emergence of what we call life.

Treats and views life as a cosmic phenomenon whose emergence and driving force should be viewed independently from its Earth-bound natural history.

Synthesizes all the fundamental life-related developments in a comprehensive scenario, and makes the argument that understanding life in its broadest context requires a material-independent perspective that identifies its essential fingerprints

Cool commentary on current human peccadilloes MACROSCOPIC TOPICS Toe-holds on the slopes of the MATTERHORN of Human Maturation. It is a struggle for each human to make the long climb from infancy through adulthood to the final quietus. These topics do not pretend to tell any one human how to live their life; they only try to encourage thinking on the various phases. EXX-RAYS FROM THE AGING CAGE Visions from the good and productive side of growing older. The purpose in these visions is to throw some light on the need for a positive attitude. Exercise for the brain keeps major negatives outside the cage. Together with appropriate physical initiatives that make sure the mental walls are free from sealed cage doors. COSMIC CYBERTREKS Explorations in the mega void of the universe ... a challenge. Time is eternal, and space is infinite in the cosmos. In terms of measuring events in the universe, where occurrences are matured over many millions of years, using Earth's rules as a guide for establishing cosmic laws is an invisible drop of spit in the seas. The trek experiences are fascinating and challenge accepted dogma for so many concepts of what is logical out in the void.

The amount of cosmological data has dramatically increased in the past decades due to an unprecedented development of telescopes, detectors and satellites. Efficiently handling and analysing new data of the order of terabytes per day requires not only computer power to be processed but also the development of sophisticated algorithms and pipelines.
Aiming at students and researchers the lecture notes in this volume explain in pedagogical manner the best techniques used to extract information from cosmological data, as well as reliable methods that should help us improve our view of the universe.

The author, a well-known astronomer himself, describes the evolution of astronomical ideas, touching only lightly on most of the instrumental developments. Richly illustrated, the book starts with the astronomical ideas of the Egyptian and Mesopotamian philosophers, moves on to the Greek period and then on to the golden age of astronomy, that of Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler and Newton. Finally, Pecker concludes with modern theories of cosmology. Written with astronomy undergraduates in mind, this is a fascinating survey of astronomical thinking.

Cosmology in Scalar-Tensor Gravity covers all aspects of cosmology in scalar-tensor theories of gravity. Considerable progress has been made in this exciting area of physics and this book is the first to provide a critical overview of the research. Among the topics treated are:
-Scalar-tensor gravity and its limit to general relativity,
-Effective energy-momentum tensors and conformal frames,
-Gravitational waves in scalar-tensor cosmology,
-Specific scalar-tensor theories,
-Exact cosmological solutions and cosmological perturbations,
-Scalar-tensor scenarios of the early universe and inflation,
-Scalar-tensor models of quintessence in the present universe and their far-reaching consequences for the ultimate fate of the cosmos.

This text reviews the changes brought about in the field of astronomy by the release of the Hipparcos catalogue. Chapters by leading experts detail the various approaches of one of the most challenging cosmological issues: the scale of the universe. After summarizing the contribution of the Hipparcos satellite itself, the volume starts with chapters concerning the primary distance indicators (Classical Cepheids, RR Lyrae stars, Miras, subdwarfs). Then our present knowledge of the distance to the Large Magellanic Cloud is reviewed, as well as extragalactic distance determinations with a group of chapters dedicated to secondary indicators. The role of the microlensing surveys is also presented as well as the up-to-date results of stellar evolution theory, together with a frank admission of their limits.

This book explains in clear, non-mathematical language the measurements and the interpretation of the resulting data that have led to the current understanding of the origin, evolution and properties of our expanding Big Bang universe. Theoretical concepts are emphasized, but no other book for the layman explains how model universes are generated, and how they function as the templates against which ours is compared and analyzed. Background material is provided in the first four chapters; the current picture and how it was attained are discussed in the next four chapters; and some unsolved problems and conjectured solutions are explored in the final chapter.

Eclipses have long been seen as important celestial phenomena, whether as omens affecting the future of kingdoms, or as useful astronomical events to help in deriving essential parameters for theories of the motion of the moon and sun. This is the first book to collect together all presently known records of timed eclipse observations and predictions from antiquity to the time of the invention of the telescope. In addition to cataloguing and assessing the accuracy of the various records, which come from regions as diverse as Ancient Mesopotamia, China, and Europe, the sources in which they are found are described in detail. Related questions such as what type of clocks were used to time the observations, how the eclipse predictions were made, and how these prediction schemes were derived from the available observations are also considered. The results of this investigation have important consequences for how we understand the relationship between observation and theory in early science and the role of astronomy in early cultures, and will be of interest to historians of science, astronomers, and ancient and medieval historians.

Beyond Einstein's Gravity is a graduate level introduction to extended theories of gravity and cosmology, including variational principles, the weak-field limit, gravitational waves, mathematical tools, exact solutions, as well as cosmological and astrophysical applications. The book provides a critical overview of the research in this area and unifies the existing literature using a consistent notation. Although the results apply in principle to all alternative gravities, a special emphasis is on scalar-tensor and f(R) theories. They were studied by theoretical physicists from early on, and in the 1980s they appeared in attempts to renormalize General Relativity and in models of the early universe. Recently, these theories have seen a new lease of life, in both their metric and metric-affine versions, as models of the present acceleration of the universe without introducing the mysterious and exotic dark energy. The dark matter problem can also be addressed in extended gravity. These applications are contributing to a deeper understanding of the gravitational interaction from both the theoretical and the experimental point of view. An extensive bibliography guides the reader into more detailed literature on particular topics.

Comet Hale-Bopp defines a milestone event for cometary science: it is the first "really big" comet observed with modern equipment on the ground and from space and due to that; it is considered the new reference object in cometary sciences.

At the beginning of a new era in spacecraft exploration of comets and five years after Hale-Bopp's perihelion passage these proceedings of invited and contributed papers for IAU Colloquium 186 "Cometary Science after Hale-Bopp" review the state-of-the-art knowledge on comets, the icy, dusty and most primordial left-overs of the formation disk of our own solar system.

This is the first volume with invited review papers. A second volume with contributed papers is published in ISBN 1-4020-0978-X.

With a focus on modified gravity this book presents a review of the recent developments in the fields of gravity and cosmology, presenting the state of the art, high-lighting the open problems, and outlining the directions of future research. General Relativity and the CDM framework are currently the standard lore and constitute the concordance paradigm of cosmology. Nevertheless, long-standing open theoretical issues, as well as possible new observational ones arising from the explosive development of cosmology in the last two decades, offer the motivation and lead a large amount of research to be devoted in constructing various extensions and modifications. In this review all extended theories and scenarios are first examined under the light of theoretical consistency, and are then applied in various geometrical backgrounds, such as the cosmological and the spherical symmetric ones. Their predictions at both the background and perturbation levels, and concerning cosmology at early, intermediate and late times, are then confronted with the huge amount of observational data that astrophysics and cosmology has been able to offer in the last two decades. Theories, scenarios and models that successfully and efficiently pass the above steps are classified as viable and are candidates for the description of Nature, allowing readers to get a clear overview of the state of the art and where the field of modified gravity is likely to go. This work was performed in the framework of the COST European Action "Cosmology and Astrophysics Network for Theoretical Advances and Training Actions" - CANTATA.

This survey will surpass its namesake, Gods, Graves and Scholars by Ceram, just as the Stars preceded the Gods and the Stones preceded the Graves.

Galaxy groups and clusters provide excellent laboratories for studying galaxy properties in different environments and at different look-back times. In particular, the recent detections of high-redshift cluster candidates, only possible with the current high-technology instrumentation, add a new dimension to the problem. Along with the ever increasing computing power and sophisticated algorithms to model clusters of galaxies, it may help us to understand the origins of today's groups and clusters, as well as of their member galaxies. These workshop proceedings provide a snapshot of the current research in this subject, covering the observations, theory and numerical simulations relevant to galaxy evolution in groups and clusters. In this book, intended primarily to researchers in the field, particular emphasis is given to the recent impressive progress in the field, on important new results, and on the future prospects and open questions to be tackled.

This is a review of the basic elements directly connected to the evolution of galaxies. Owing to advances in observational astronomy and astrophysics, data has become available about remote galaxies, which are consequently in the first stages of their evolution. It is therefore essential to link these data to the observation of very old populations in our own Galaxy, which are the remnants of the populations which existed in the first stages of galactic evolution. In this meeting, the relationship between these two different points of view is emphasized in the texts presented by well-known specialists as well as by young researchers active in the field. The difficulties of the problem and the remaining uncertainties are discussed.

We know the universe has a history, but does it also have a story of self-creation to tell? Yes, in Roy R. Gould’s account. He offers a compelling narrative of how the universe—with no instruction other than its own laws—evolved into billions of galaxies and gave rise to life, including humans who have been trying for millennia to comprehend it. Far from being a random accident, the universe is hard at work, extracting order from chaos. Making use of the best current science, Gould turns what many assume to be true about the universe on its head. The cosmos expands inward, not outward. Gravity can drive things apart, not merely together. And the universe seems to defy entropy as it becomes more ordered, rather than the other way around. Strangest of all, the universe is exquisitely hospitable to life, despite its being constructed from undistinguished atoms and a few unexceptional rules of behavior. Universe in Creation explores whether the emergence of life, rather than being a mere cosmic afterthought, may be written into the most basic laws of nature. Offering a fresh take on what brought the world—and us—into being, Gould helps us see the universe as the master of its own creation, not tethered to a singular event but burgeoning as new space and energy continuously stream into existence. It is a very old story, as yet unfinished, with plotlines that twist and churn through infinite space and time.

Intended for undergraduate non-science majors, satisfying a general education requirement or seeking an elective in natural science, this is a physics text, but with the emphasis on topics and applications in astronomy. The perspective is thus different from most undergraduate astronomy courses: rather than discussing what is known about the heavens, this text develops the principles of physics so as to illuminate what we see in the heavens. The fundamental principles governing the behaviour of matter and energy are thus used to study the solar system, the structure and evolution of stars, and the early universe. The first part of the book develops Newtonian mechanics towards an understanding of celestial mechanics, while chapters on electromagnetism and elementary quantum theory lay the foundation of the modern theory of the structure of matter and the role of radiation in the constitution of stars. Kinetic theory and nuclear physics provide the basis for a discussion of stellar structure and evolution, and an examination of red shifts and other observational data provide a basis for discussions of cosmology and cosmogony.

In these lectures, I have discussed a number of basic concepts that provide the necessary background to the current studies of star formation. A ?rst partwas dedicatedto illustrate the conceptofa protostar, discussing con- tions and propertiesof the collapseof a molecular core. A secondpart deals with circumstellardisks. Disks areimportantnot only to the processofstar formation itself, but also because they are in all probability the site where planets form. The age range of pre-main-sequence stars coincides with the timescales for the formation of very large planetesimals, the building blocks of planets. Studies ofdisk properties in pre-main-sequencestars ofdi?erent age, located in star-forming regions of di?erent properties, may shed light on the characteristics of planet formation processes. ISO observations can provide important (in some cases, unique) inf- mation on the various stages of the star and planet formation. I have illustrated in detail some examples, when, to my knowledge, ISO data had been reduced and analyzed. Many other programs exist, and will certainly contribute to our understanding of star formation in the near future

This book has grown out of lectures held at a summer school on cosmology, in response to an ever increasing need for an advanced textbook that addresses the needs of both postgraduate students and nonspecialist researchers from various disciplines ranging from mathematical physics to observational astrophysics. Bridging the gap between standard textbook material in cosmology and the forefront of research, this book also constitutes a modern source of reference for the experienced researcher in classical and quantum cosmology.

This book describes our gradual awareness of a vast, previously concealed Universe. It is a story of expanding horizons and the discovery of invisible worlds. This voyage of discovery is presented within universal themes, such as invisibility, motion, content, form, impermanence, violence and emptiness, beginnings and ends. These are topics that concern us all, helping us take the Universe personally, so each chapter begins with the human aspect of some of these themes. The book is additionally broadened by including the perceptions of artists, poets and writers, as well as with line drawings that forcefully compact a scientific insight.

In a distilled and pedagogical fashion, the contributions to this volume of the famous summer school in Les Houches cover the recent developments in supersymmetric string theory, the gauge theory/string theory correspondence and string duality. Further chapters deal with quantum gravity and D-brane geometry. Black hole mechanics and cosmology are treated too, as well as the AdS-CFT correspondence. The book is a comprehensive introduction to the recent developments in string/M-theory and quantum gravity. It addresses graduate students in physics and astrophysics.

The International Conference, Orbis Scientiae 1996, focused on the topics: The Neutrino Mass, Light Cone Quantization, Monopole Condensation, Dark Matter, and Gravitational Waves which we have adopted as the title of these proceedings. Was there any exciting news at the conference? Maybe, it depends on who answers the question. There was an almost unanimous agreement on the overall success of the conference as was evidenced by the fact that in the after-dinner remarks by one of us (BNK) the suggestion of organizing the conference on a biannual basis was presented but not accepted: the participants wanted the continuation of the tradition to convene annually. We shall, of course, comply. The expected observation of gravitational waves will constitute the most exciting vindication of Einstein's general relativity. This subject is attracting the attention of the experimentalists and theorists alike. We hope that by the first decade of the third millennium or earlier, gravitational waves will be detected, opening the way for a search for gravitons somewhere in the universe, presumably through the observations in the CMBR. The theoretical basis of the graviton search will take us to quantum gravity and eventually to the modification of general relativity to include the Planck scale behavior of gravity -at energies 19 of the order of 10 Ge V.

The recent scientific efforts in Astrophysics & Cosmology have brought a revolution to our understanding of the Cosmos. Amazing results is the outcome of amazing experiments! The huge scientific, technological & financial effort that has gone into building the 10-m class telescopes as well as many space and balloon observatories, essential to observe the multitude of cosmic phenomena in their manifestations at different wavelengths, from gamma-rays to the millimetre and the radio, has given and is still giving its fruits of knowledge.
These recent scientific achievements in Observational and Theoretical Cosmology were presented in the "Multiwavelength Cosmology" conference that took place on beautiful Mykonos island in the Aegean between 17 and 20 June 2003. More than 180 Cosmologists from all over the world gathered for a four-day intense meeting in which recent results from large ground based surveys (AAT/2-df, SLOAN) and space missions (WMAP, Chandra, XMM, ISO, HST) were presented and debated, providing a huge impetus to our knowledge of the Cosmos.
The future of the subject (experiments, and directions of research) was also discussed. The conference was devoted mostly on the constraints on Cosmological models and galaxy formation theories that arise from the study of the high redshift Universe, from clusters of galaxies, and their evolution, from the cosmic microwave background, the large-scale structure and star-formation history.

What do we know about the origins of the Universe, and more important, how do we know it? In a small, easy-to-read package, this book introduces you to all of the important ideas about the Big Bang and its consequences. Craig Hogan explains what happened in the early days of the universe, why we think it's expanding (and how the expansion can look the same from everyplace at once), different ways the universe could end, and the meaning of such terms as "cosmic inflation," "cosmic background radiation," and "dark matter." For everyone who has always wondered just what the cosmologists are talking about but could never find the basics explained clearly and simply, this is the book to read.