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Books > Science & Mathematics > Astronomy, space & time > Cosmology & the universe
A tight-knit, high-powered group of scientists and engineers
spent eight years building a satellite designed, in effect, to read
the genome of the universe. Launched in 2001, the Wilkinson
Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) reported its first results two
years later with a set of brilliant observations that added focus,
detail, and insight to our formerly fuzzy view of the cosmos.
For more than a year, the WMAP satellite hovered in the cold of
deep space, a million miles from Earth, in an effort to determine
whether the science of cosmology--the study of the origin and
evolution of the universe--has been on the right track for the past
two decades. What WMAP was looking for was a barely perceptible
pattern of hot and cold spots in the faint whisper of microwave
radiation left over from the Big Bang, the event that almost 14
billion years ago gave birth to all of space, time, matter, and
energy.
The pattern encoded in those microwaves holds the answers to
some of the great unanswered questions of cosmology: What is the
universe made of? What is its geometry? How much of it consists of
the mysterious dark matter and dark energy that continue to baffle
astronomers? How fast is it expanding? And did it undergo a period
of inflationary hyper-expansion at the very beginning? WMAP has now
given definitive answers to these mysteries.
On February 11, 2003, the team of researchers went public with
the results. Just some of their extraordinary findings: The
universe is 13.7 billion years old. The first stars--turned
on--when the universe was only 200 million years old, five times
earlier than anyone had thought. It is now certain that a
mysterious dark energy dominates the universe. Michael Lemonick,
who had exclusive access to the researchers as WMAP gathered its
data, here tells the full story of WMAP and its surprising
revelations. This book is both a personal and a scientific tale of
discovery. In its pages, readers will come to know the science of
cosmology and the people who, seventy-five years after we first
learned that the universe is expanding, deciphered some of its
deepest mysteries in the patterns of its oldest light.
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Plato's Timaeus
(Paperback)
Plato; Francis MacDonald 1874-1943 Cornford, Oskar Piest
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R515
Discovery Miles 5 150
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Ships in 10 - 15 working days
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Plato's Timaeus
(Hardcover)
Plato; Francis MacDonald 1874-1943 Cornford, Oskar Piest
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R833
Discovery Miles 8 330
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Ships in 10 - 15 working days
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These lectures were first given during my tenure of a Walker Ames
Visiting Professorship in the Department of Astronautics and
Aeronautics at the University of Washington, November 2-12, 1964. I
am grateful for the interest shown there and for the tranquil
hospitality of Dr. JOHN BOLLARD and Dr. ELLIS DILL, which allowed
me the leisure sufficient to write the first manuscript. I thank
Dean ROBERT Roy and Dr. GEORGE BENTON for the unusual honor of an
invitation to deliver a series of public lectures at my own
university. Apart from the footnotes on pp. 49, 50, and 85, which
have been added so as to answer questions allowed by the slower
pace of silence, and the obviously necessary note on p. 106, the
lectures of this second series are here printed as read, February
9-25, 1965. Thus I may call these, in imitation of a famous
example, " Bal timore Lectures." Acknowledgment The first lecture
is based largely upon my Bingham Medal Address of 1963, part of
which it reproduces verbatim. The filth lecture may be regarded as
a partial summary of my course on ergodic theory at the
International School of Physics, Varenna, 1960. Much of the last
lecture runs parallel to my article "The Modern Spirit in Applied
Mathematics," ICSU Review of World Science, Volume 6, pp. 195-205
(1964), and some paragraphs are taken from my address to the Fourth
U. S. National Congress of Applied Mechanics (1961)."
Providing a comprehensive and up-to-date treatment of observational
cosmology, this advanced undergraduate textbook enables students to
use quantitative physical methods to understand the Universe. The
textbook covers recent developments such as precision cosmology and
the concordance cosmological model, inflation, gravitational
lensing, the extragalactic far-infrared and X-ray backgrounds,
downsizing and baryon wiggles. It also explores the future missions
and facilities likely to dominate cosmological research in the
future, including radio, X-ray, submillimetre-wave and
gravitational wave astronomy. Each chapter contains full-colour
figures, worked examples and exercises with complete solutions.
Clearly identified key facts and equations help students easily
locate important information. Suggestions for further reading
provide jumping-off points for students aiming to further their
studies. Reflecting decades of Open University experience in
undergraduate teaching, this textbook brings students to the
forefront of the rapidly developing field of observational
cosmology. Accompanying resources to this textbook are available
at: http://www.cambridge.org/features/astrophysics.
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