A01=Helge Kragh
Age of the universe
Alpha particle
Antiparticle
Apparent magnitude
Astronomer
Astronomical object
Astronomy
Astrophysics
Atomic nucleus
Atomic number
Author_Helge Kragh
Big Bang
Calculation
Category=PDX
Category=PGK
Cepheid variable
Chemical element
Chronology of the universe
Cosmic microwave background
Cosmic ray
Cosmogony
Cosmological constant
Cosmological principle
Cyclic model
De Sitter universe
Deceleration parameter
Electromagnetic radiation
Elementary particle
Energy conservation
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Fred Hoyle
General relativity
George Gamow
Gravitational constant
Gravity
Hubble's law
Hypothesis
Jayant Narlikar
Mach's principle
Matter creation
Metric expansion of space
Nebula
Neutrino
Neutron
Neutron capture
Nuclear reaction
Nucleosynthesis
Observable universe
Observational astronomy
Photon
Physical cosmology
Physicist
Prediction
Quantity
Quantum mechanics
Radio astronomy
Recessional velocity
Redshift
Salpeter
Scientist
Speed of light
Spiral galaxy
Static universe
Steady State theory
Stellar evolution
Supernova
Temperature
The Astrophysical Journal
Theoretical physics
Theory
Theory of relativity
Universe
Wavelength
Ylem
Product details
- ISBN 9780691005461
- Weight: 709g
- Dimensions: 197 x 254mm
- Publication Date: 14 Mar 1999
- Publisher: Princeton University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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For over three millennia, most people could understand the universe only in terms of myth, religion, and philosophy. Between 1920 and 1970, cosmology transformed into a branch of physics. With this remarkably rapid change came a theory that would finally lend empirical support to many long-held beliefs about the origins and development of the entire universe: the theory of the big bang. In this book, Helge Kragh presents the development of scientific cosmology for the first time as a historical event, one that embroiled many famous scientists in a controversy over the very notion of an evolving universe with a beginning in time. In rich detail he examines how the big-bang theory drew inspiration from and eventually triumphed over rival views, mainly the steady-state theory and its concept of a stationary universe of infinite age. In the 1920s, Alexander Friedmann and Georges Lemaitre showed that Einstein's general relativity equations possessed solutions for a universe expanding in time.
Kragh follows the story from here, showing how the big-bang theory evolved, from Edwin Hubble's observation that most galaxies are receding from us, to the discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation. Sir Fred Hoyle proposed instead the steady-state theory, a model of dynamic equilibrium involving the continuous creation of matter throughout the universe. Although today it is generally accepted that the universe started some ten billion years ago in a big bang, many readers may not fully realize that this standard view owed much of its formation to the steady-state theory. By exploring the similarities and tensions between the theories, Kragh provides the reader with indispensable background for understanding much of today's commentary about our universe.
Helge Kragh is Professor of the History of Science at the University of Oslo. His works include a biography of P.A.M. Dirac.
