Rhodri Evans tells the story of what we know about the universe, from Jacobus Kapteyn's Island universe at the turn of the 20th Century, and the discovery by Hubble that the nebulae were external to our own galaxy, through Gamow's early work on the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and its subsequent discovery by Penzias and Wilson, to modern day satellite-lead CMB research. Research results from the ground-based experiments DASI, BOOMERANG, and satellite missions COBE, WMAP and Planck are explained and interpreted to show how our current picture of the universe was arrived at, and the author looks at the future of CMB research and what we still need to learn. This account is enlivened by Dr Rhodri Evans' personal connections to the characters and places in the story.

A major outstanding problem in physics is understanding the nature of the dark energy that is driving the accelerating expansion of the Universe. This thesis makes a significant contribution by demonstrating, for the first time, using state-of-the-art computer simulations, that the interpretation of future galaxy survey measurements is far more subtle than is widely assumed, and that a major revision to our models of these effects is urgently needed. The work contained in the thesis was used by the WiggleZ dark energy survey to measure the growth rate of cosmic structure in 2011 and had a direct impact on the design of the surveys to be conducted by the European Space Agency's Euclid mission, a 650 million euro project to measure dark energy.

Peter Gabriel Bergmann started his work on general relativity in 1936 when he moved from Prague to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Bergmann collaborated with Einstein in an attempt to provide a geometrical unified field theory of gravitation and electromagnetism. Within this program they wrote two articles together: A. Einstein and P. G. Bergmann, Ann. Math. 39, 685 (1938) ; and A. Einstein, V. Bargmann and P. G. Bergmann, Th. von Karman Anniversary Volume 212 (1941). The search for such a theory was intense in the ten years following the birth of general relativity. In recent years, some of the geometrical ideas proposed in these publications have proved essential in contemporary attempts towards the unification of all interactions including gravity, Kaluza-Klein type theories and supergravity theories. In 1942, Bergmann published the book "Introduction to the Theory of Relativity" which included a foreword by Albert Einstein. This book is a reference for the subject, either as a textbook for classroom use or for individual study. A second corrected and enlarged edition of the book was published in 1976. Einstein said in his foreword to the first edition: "Bergmann's book seems to me to satisfy a definite need. . . Much effort has gone into making this book logically and pedagogically satisfactory and Bergmann has spent many hours with me which were devoted to this end.

Some major developments of physics in the last three decades are addressed by highly qualified specialists in different specific fields. They include renormalization problems in QFT, vacuum energy fluctuations and the Casimir effect in different configurations, and a wealth of applications. A number of closely related issues are also considered. The cosmological applications of these theories play a crucial role and are at the very heart of the book; in particular, the possibility to explain in a unified way the whole history of the evolution of the Universe: from primordial inflation to the present day accelerated expansion. Further, a description of the mathematical background underlying many of the physical theories considered above is provided. This includes the uses of zeta functions in physics, as in the regularization problems in QFT already mentioned, specifically in curved space-time, and in Casimir problems as.

In the past decade, Paul Halpern has brought readers three stunning histories of science -- Einstein's Dice and Schroedinger's Cats, The Quantum Labyrinth, and Synchronicity -- that reveal the twisted, bizarre, and illuminating stories of physics' greatest thinkers and ideas. In Flashes of Creation, Halpern turns to what might be the biggest story of them all: the discovery of the origins of the universe and everything in it. Today, the Big Bang is so deeply entrenched in our understanding of the universe that to doubt it would seem crazy. And that is pretty much what has happened to the last major opponent of the theory, British astronomer Fred Hoyle. If anyone knows his name today, they probably think he went off the deep end-or at least was so very wrong for so long as to seem completely obtuse. But the hot-headed Hoyle saw himself as a crusader for physics, defending scientific progress from a band of charlatans. His doggedness was equalled by one man alone: Russian-American physicist George Gamow, who saw the idea of the Big Bang as essential to explaining where the Universe came from, and why it's full of the matter that surrounds us. The stakes were high! And the ensuing battle, waged in person and through the media over decades, was as fiery as the cosmic cataclysm the theory describes. Most of us might guess who turned out to be right (Gamow, mostly) and who noisily spun out of control as the evidence against his position mounted (Hoyle). Unfortunately for Hoyle, he is mostly remembered for giving the theory the silliest name he could think of: "The Big Bang." But as Halpern so eloquently demonstrates, even the greatest losers in physics -- including those who seem as foolish and ornery as Fred Hoyle -- have much to teach us, about boldness, imagination, and even the universe itself.

In Miletus, about 550 B.C., together with our world-picture cosmology was born. This book tells the story. In Part One the reader is introduced in the archaic world-picture of a flat earth with the cupola of the celestial vault onto whichthe celestial bodies are attached. One of the subjects treated in that context is the riddle of the tilted celestial axis. This part also contains an extensive chapter on archaic astronomical instruments.Part Twoshows how Anaximander (610-547 B.C.) blew up this archaic world-picture and replaced it by a new one that is essentially still ours. He taught that the celestial bodies orbit at different distances and that the earth floats unsupported in space. This makes him the founding father of cosmology.Part Threediscusses topics that completed the new picturedescribed by Anaximander. Special attention is paid to the confrontation between Anaxagoras and Aristotle on the question whether the earth is flat or spherical, and on the battlebetween Aristotle and Heraclides Ponticus on the question whether the universe is finite or infinite.

In Losing the Nobel Prize, cosmologist and inventor of the BICEP (Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization) experiment Brian Keating tells the inside story of BICEP2's mesmerising discovery and the scientific drama that ensued. In an adventure story that spans the globe, Keating takes us on a personal journey of revelation and discovery, bringing to vivid life the highly competitive, take-no-prisoners, publish-or-perish world of modern science. Along the way, he provocatively argues that the Nobel Prize, instead of advancing scientific progress, may actually hamper it, encouraging speed and greed while punishing collaboration and bold innovation.

Due to its specific chemical and physical properties, water is essential for life on Earth. And it is assumed that this would be the case for extraterrestrial life as well. Therefore it is important to investigate where water can be found in the Universe. Although there are places that are completely dry, places where the last rainfall happened probably several 100 million years ago, surprisingly this substance is quite omnipresent. In the outer solar system the large satellites of Jupiter and Saturn are covered by a thick layer of ice that could be hiding a liquid ocean below. This of course brings up the question of whether the recently detected extrasolar planets could have some water on their surfaces and how we can detect this. Water molecules are also found in interstellar gas and dust clouds. This book begins with an introductory chapter reviewing the physical and chemical properties of water. Then it illuminates the apparent connection between water and life. This is followed by chapters dealing with our current knowledge of water in the solar system, followed by a discussion concerning the potential presence and possible detection of water on exoplanets. The signature of water in interstellar space and stars are reviewed before the origin of water in the Universe is finally discussed. The book ends with an appendix on detection methods, satellite missions and astrophysical concepts touched upon in the main parts of the book. The search for water in the Universe is related to the search for extraterrestrial life and is of fundamental importance for astrophysics, astrobiology and other related topics. This book therefore addresses students and researchers in these fields.

This book represents the proceedings from the NATO sponsored Advanced Research Workshop entitled "Observational Tests of Inflation" held at the University of Durham, England on the 10th-14th December, 1990. In recent years, the cosmological inflation model has drawn together the worlds of particle physics, theoretical cosmology and observational astronomy. The aim of the workshop was to bring together experts in all of these fields to discuss the current status of the inflation theory and its observational predictions. The simplest inflation model makes clear predictions which are testable by astronomical observation. Foremost is the prediction that the cosmological density parameter, no, should have a value negligibly different from the critical, Einstein-de Sitter value of 00=1. The other main prediction is that the spectrum of primordial density fluctuations should be Gaussian and take the Harrison-Zeldovich form. The prediction that n =l, in patticular, leads to several important consequences o for cosmology. Firstly, there is the apparent contradiction with the limits on baryon density from Big Bang nucleosynthesis which has led to the common conjecture that weakly interacting particles rather than baryons may form the dominant mass constituent of the Universe. Secondly, with n =l, the age of the Universe is uncomfortably short if o the Hubble constant and the ages of the oldest star clusters lie within their currently believed limits.

Black holes and gravitational radiation are two of the most dramatic predictions of general relativity. The quest for rotating black holes - discovered by Roy P. Kerr as exact solutions to the Einstein equations - is one of the most exciting challenges currently facing physicists and astronomers. Gravitational Radiation, Luminous Black Holes and Gamma-Ray Burst Supernovae takes the reader through the theory of gravitational radiation and rotating black holes, and the phenomenology of GRB-supernovae. Topics covered include Kerr black holes and the frame-dragging of spacetime, luminous black holes, compact tori around black holes, and black-hole spin interactions. It concludes with a discussion of prospects for gravitational-wave detections of a long-duration burst in gravitational-waves as a method of choice for identifying Kerr black holes in the Universe. This book is ideal for a special topics graduate course on gravitational-wave astronomy and as an introduction to those interested in this contemporary development in physics.

Manolis Plionis & Spiros Cotsakis plionis@sapfo. astro. noa. gr skot@aegean. gr Since the dawn of human civilisation natural phenomena have been subject to observation and investigation by the humans who initially ascribed to them 'divine' powers. Gods of 'good' and 'evil' werecreatedaccording to the useful- ness or notofsuch unexplained, atthetime, phenomena. Astheir understanding of the world developed and deepened, the divine powers, religious beliefs, su- perstitions and mysticism gave their place to the knowledge, limited that it may be, of physical reality. However, many issues have been and still are out of grasp of human understanding. These issues have always been at the center of philosophical, theological, and more recently, scientific debate. It is to us incredible that many of the conclusions concerning the true scientific explanation of the external world, to which the ancient Greeks arrived purely on the basis of abstract thought, came so near to modem scientific ideas and also form the basis of modem science. We cannot but stand with amazement at the original thoughts of Archimedes who, among his many extraordinary achieve- ments in mathematics and physics, calculated (cf. TheSandReckoner) the mass density of the observable universe and came up with a figure that is in complete agreement with current estimates coming from observational cosmology.

Das Buch handelt von den Herausforderungen der Evolutionstheorie fur unser Menschenbild. Es moechte darauf Antworten aus der Sicht der Philosophie bieten. Grundthese ist, dass der Mensch Hoehepunkt und Ziel der Evolution ist. Diese These ist nicht nur philosophisch bedeutsam, sondern besitzt auch politische Brisanz. Gegenuber ihren religioesen Kritikern wird sowohl die Evolutionstheorie wie auch das klassische Menschenbild verteidigt und eine philosophisch reflektierte Konzeption vorgelegt, die naturwissenschaftliche, metaphysische, anthropologische und religionsphilosophische Aspekte koharent zusammendenkt.

You have just discovered the literary masterpiece that answers your questions about God, life in the inhabited universe, the history and future of this world, and the life of Jesus. The Urantia Book harmonizes history, science, and religion into a philosophy of living that brings new meaning and hope into your life. If you are searching for answers, read The Urantia Book! The world needs new spiritual truth that provides modern men and women with an intellectual pathway into a personal relationship with God. Building on the world's religious heritage, The Urantia Book describes an endless destiny for humankind, teaching that living faith is the key to personal spiritual progress and eternal survival. These teachings provide new truths powerful enough to uplift and advance human thinking and believing for the next 1000 years. A third of The Urantia Book is the inspiring story of Jesus' entire life and a revelation of his original teachings. This panoramic narrative includes his birth, childhood, teenage years, adult travels and adventures, public ministry, crucifixion, and 19 resurrection appearances. This inspiring story recasts Jesus from the leading figure of Christianity into the guide for seekers of all faiths and all walks of life.

From the Big Bang to the Gaia Mission, this is a very personal history of the universe through the author's favourite 100 stars. Astronomer Florian Freistetter has chosen 100 stars that have almost nothing in common. Some are bright and famous, some shine so feebly you need a huge telescope. There are big stars, small stars, nearby stars and faraway stars. Some died a while ago, others have not even yet come into being. Collectively they tell the story of the whole world, according to Freistetter. There is Algol, for example, the Demon Star, whose strange behaviour has long caused people sleepless nights. And Gamma Draconis, from which we know that the earth rotates around its own axis. There is also the star sequence 61 Cygni, which revealed the size of the cosmos to us. Then there are certain stars used by astronomers to search for extra-terrestrial life, to explore interstellar space travel, or to explain why the dinosaurs became extinct. In 100 short, fascinating and entertaining chapters, Freistetter not only reveals the past and future of the cosmos, but also the story of the people who have tried to understand the world in which we live.

Cosmic masers, naturally occurring amplifiers of microwave emission from atoms and molecules in the Milky Way and other galaxies, provide important tools to investigate astrophysical environments. The first, hydroxyl (OH) masers were discovered in 1965 and since that time several thousand sources of maser emission, from a variety of cosmic molecules, have been discovered and studied. Because this natural emission occurs at discrete frequencies, which depend upon specific atomic or molecular transitions, masers are also useful for studying the structure and dynamics of our own galaxy. Masers in other galaxies are now used for cosmological studies of the dynamics of massive black holes in galactic nuclei and to directly measure the Hubble constant, H0. This volume contains a comprehensive, up-to-date review of cosmic masers, their nature, sources, environments and uses, as presented at IAU Symposium 287, the fourth international symposium on cosmic masers.

Bringing the material up to date, Black Holes, Wormholes and Time Machines, Second Edition captures the new ideas and discoveries made in physics since the publication of the best-selling first edition. While retaining the popular format and style of its predecessor, this edition explores the latest developments in high-energy astroparticle physics and Big Bang cosmology.

The book continues to make the ideas and theories of modern physics easily understood by anyone, from researchers to students to general science enthusiasts. Taking you on a journey through space and time, author Jim Al-Khalili covers some of the most fascinating topics in physics today, including:

• Black holes
• Space warps
• The Big Bang
• Time travel
• Wormholes
• Parallel universes

Professor Al-Khalili explains often complex scientific concepts in simple, nontechnical terms and imparts an appreciation of the cosmos, helping you see how time traveling may not be so far-fetched after all.

There are 'voids' obscuring all kinds of objects in the cosmos.Voids may be withinan object, or betweenan object and us. "Dark Nebulae, Dark Lanes, and Dust Lanes" looks out into the deep sky at those apparent darkregions in space, which are among the most compelling telescopic destinations for amateur observers.One famous example is Barnard's dark nebulae - those striking dark clouds set against the background of stars in the Milky Way. But there are countless other less well knownexamples.These dark regions are often ignored altogether or commented upon onlybriefly in astronomy books, and it is all too easy to overlook the treasure trove they offer the observer.

"Dark Nebulae, Dark Lanes, and DustLanes" is a great source of practical information for observers.Such voids may be successfully observed using conventional observing methods, but they are often far better seen with technologies such as light-pollution filters, CCD video cameras, and image intensifiers. This book explains the optimal ways to observe each object in detail."

Black holes are the most extreme objects in the universe, yet every galaxy harbours a black hole at its centre. In Einstein's Monsters, Chris Impey builds on this profound discovery to explore questions at the cutting edge of cosmology, such as what happens if you travel into a black hole and whether the galaxy or its black hole came first. Impey chronicles the role black holes have played in theoretical physics. He then describes the phenomena that scientists have witnessed while observing black holes: dozens of stars swarming around the dark object at the centre of our galaxy; black holes performing gravitational waltzes with normal stars; the cymbal clash of two black holes colliding, releasing ripples in spacetime. Einstein's Monsters is the incredible story of one of the most enigmatic entities in nature.

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Welcome to the Universe is a personal guided tour of the cosmos by three of today's leading astrophysicists. Inspired by the enormously popular introductory astronomy course that Neil deGrasse Tyson, Michael A. Strauss, and J. Richard Gott taught together at Princeton, this book covers it all--from planets, stars, and galaxies to black holes, wormholes, and time travel. Describing the latest discoveries in astrophysics, the informative and entertaining narrative propels you from our home solar system to the outermost frontiers of space. How do stars live and die? Why did Pluto lose its planetary status? What are the prospects of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe? How did the universe begin? Why is it expanding and why is its expansion accelerating? Is our universe alone or part of an infinite multiverse? Answering these and many other questions, the authors open your eyes to the wonders of the cosmos, sharing their knowledge of how the universe works. Breathtaking in scope and stunningly illustrated throughout, Welcome to the Universe is for those who hunger for insights into our evolving universe that only world-class astrophysicists can provide.

Neither Arkadii nor Boris Strugatskii had originally intended to make a living in writing. Arkadii dreamed of becoming an astronomer, but his wartime experience and training led him to work as a translator and editor of Japanese literature. Boris intended to become a physicist, trained as an astronomer, and ended up as a computer specialist at Pulkovo Observatory. This common thread of astronomy turns out to be fantastically important for understanding their works, as their most important ones are experiments in cosmology, and their shared expertise is instrumental in their construction of literary hellscapes. This book explores how the Strugatskiis' cosmological explorations are among the most fundamental elements of their art. It examines also how these explorations connect to their predecessors in the Russian literary tradition-particularly to the poetry of Pushkin.

From the big bang to black holes, from dark matter to dark energy, from the origins of the universe to its ultimate destiny, "The Edge of the Sky" tells the story of the most important discoveries and mysteries in modern cosmology--with a twist. The book's lexicon is limited to the thousand most common words in the English language, excluding "physics," "energy," "galaxy," or even "universe." Through the eyes of a fictional scientist (Student-People) hunting for dark matter with one of the biggest telescopes (Big-Seers) on Earth (Home-World), cosmologist Roberto Trotta explores the most important ideas about our universe (All-there-is) in language simple enough for anyone to understand.
A unique blend of literary experimentation and science popularization, this delightful book is a perfect gift for any aspiring astronomer. The Edge of the Sky tells the story of the universe on a human scale, and the result is out of this world.

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.

Cosmochemistry is a rapidly evolving field of planetary science and the second edition of this classic text reflects the exciting discoveries made over the past decade from new spacecraft missions. Topics covered include the synthesis of elements in stars, behaviour of elements and isotopes in the early solar nebula and planetary bodies, and compositions of extra-terrestrial materials. Radioisotope chronology of the early Solar System is also discussed, as well as geochemical exploration of planets by spacecraft, and cosmochemical constraints on the formation of solar systems. Thoroughly updated throughout, this new edition features significantly expanded coverage of chemical fractionation and isotopic analyses; focus boxes covering basic definitions and essential background material on mineralogy, organic chemistry and quantitative topics; and a comprehensive glossary. An appendix of analytical techniques and end-of-chapter review questions, with solutions available at www.cambridge.org/cosmochemistry2e, also contribute to making this the ideal teaching resource for courses on the Solar System's composition as well as a valuable reference for early career researchers.

Now in its 4th edition, this classic text presents a quantitative understanding of a range of astrophysical concepts. Emphasizing physical concepts, the book outlines cosmic events but does not portray them in detail. Instead, it provides a series of astrophysical sketches showing how to obtain quantitative insights into the structure and evolution of stars, the dynamics of cosmic gases, the large-scale behavior of the universe, and the origins of life. Nearly every part of the text has been reconsidered and rewritten for the new edition; new sections cover recent developments, and the remainder has been revised and brought up to date.

The lectures that four authors present in this volume investigate core topics related to the accelerated expansion of the Universe. Accelerated expansion occured in the ?36 very early Universe - an exponential expansion in the in ationary period 10 s after the Big Bang. This well-established theoretical concept had rst been p- posed in 1980 by Alan Guth to account for the homogeneity and isotropy of the observable universe, and simultaneously by Alexei Starobinski, and has since then been developed by many authors in great theoretical detail. An accelerated expansion of the late Universe at redshifts z< 1 has been disc- ered in 1998; the expansion is not slowing down under the in uence of gravity, but is instead accelerating due to some uniformly distributed, gravitationally repulsive substance accounting for more than 70% of the mass-energy content of the U- verse, which is now known as dark energy. Its most common interpretation today is given in terms of the so-called CDM model with a cosmological constant .