The scientific life of Fred Hoyle (1915–2001) was truly unparalleled. During his career he wrote groundbreaking scientific papers and caused bitter disputes in the scientific community with his revolutionary theories. Hoyle is best known for showing that we are all, literally, made of stardust in his paper explaining how carbon, and then all the heavier elements, were created by nuclear reactions inside stars. However, he constantly courted controversy and two years later he followed this with his 'steady state' theory of the universe. This challenged another model of the universe, which Hoyle called the 'big bang' theory. Fred Hoyle was also famous amongst the general public. He popularised his research through radio and television broadcasts and wrote best-selling novels. Written from personal accounts and interviews with Hoyle's contemporaries, this book gives valuable personal insights into Fred Hoyle and his unforgettable life.

Astronomers have determined that our universe is 13.7 billion years old. How exactly did they come to this precise conclusion? How Old Is the Universe? tells the incredible story of how astronomers solved one of the most compelling mysteries in science and, along the way, introduces readers to fundamental concepts and cutting-edge advances in modern astronomy.

The age of our universe poses a deceptively simple question, and its answer carries profound implications for science, religion, and philosophy. David Weintraub traces the centuries-old quest by astronomers to fathom the secrets of the nighttime sky. Describing the achievements of the visionaries whose discoveries collectively unveiled a fundamental mystery, he shows how many independent lines of inquiry and much painstakingly gathered evidence, when fitted together like pieces in a cosmic puzzle, led to the long-sought answer. Astronomers don't believe the universe is 13.7 billion years old--they know it. You will too after reading this book. By focusing on one of the most crucial questions about the universe and challenging readers to understand the answer, Weintraub familiarizes readers with the ideas and phenomena at the heart of modern astronomy, including red giants and white dwarfs, cepheid variable stars and supernovae, clusters of galaxies, gravitational lensing, dark matter, dark energy and the accelerating universe--and much more. Offering a unique historical approach to astronomy, How Old Is the Universe? sheds light on the inner workings of scientific inquiry and reveals how astronomers grapple with deep questions about the physical nature of our universe.

Parting the Cosmic Veil describes our gradual awareness of a vast, previously concealed Universe. It is a story of expanding horizons and the discovery of invisible worlds, made possible with new technology and novel telescopes that have broadened our range of perception and sharpened our vision.

Spacecraft have carried men to the Moon, and traveled throughout the Solar System, obtaining close-up views that have transformed the moons and planets from moving points of light to fascinating, diverse worlds. Modern technology has also enabled the detection of giant planets around other stars, taking us one step closer to the possible detection of life outside the Earth.

Astronomers have used telescopes, operating at the visible wavelengths that we see with our eye, to reveal the true extent of the Milky Way and discover billions of remote galaxies that are rushing away from us in an expanding Universe. Each of these galaxies contains billions of stars wheeling around their massive central hub.

Radio waves and X-rays, which lie beyond the range of visual perception, are used to detect a violent Universe, from exploding stars to gamma ray bursts and the Big Bang itself, with the associated discoveries of pulsars, black holes and quasars. Radio astronomers have also shown that the dark spaces between the stars contain vast tracts of cold hydrogen atoms and a host of molecules.

Dark invisible matter has been discovered residing outside the shining stars and galaxies, outweighing them all. And a mysterious dark energy has also been found, which fills the nooks and crannies of seemingly empty space.

The Cosmos is evolving, participating in ongoing processes of creation, destruction, and re-birth. But even though we are pushing the boundaries of knowledge closer to an understanding of the origins and destinies, of either the Universe or Life, the ultimate answers to these grand questions still lie hidden behind the Cosmic Veil.

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.Parting the Cosmic Veil is additionally broadened by including the perceptions of artists, poets and writers, each example chosen for the insight it offers, as well as with line drawings that forcefully compact a scientific insight.

Professor Lang is known for his famous, widely used reference books Astrophysical Formulae I, II, published in their third edition in 1995 by Springer-Verlag. He is also a writer of prize-winning science books that have a broad readership, including amateurs, experts and the educated layperson. Some of these popular books, which include Sun, Earth and Sky, Wanderers in Space, the Cambridge Encyclopedia of the Sun and the Cambridge Guide to the Solar System, have been translated into seven languages.

The dark matter problem is one of the most fundamental and profoundly difficult to solve problems in the history of science. Not knowing what makes up most of the known universe goes to the heart of our understanding of the Universe and our place in it. In Search of Dark Matter is the story of the emergence of the dark matter problem, from the initial erroneous ‘discovery’ of dark matter by Jan Oort to contemporary explanations for the nature of dark matter and its role in the origin and evolution of the Universe. Written for the educated non-scientist and scientist alike, it spans a variety of scientific disciplines, from observational astronomy to particle physics. Concepts that the reader will encounter along the way are at the cutting edge of scientific research. However the themes are explained in such a way that no prior understanding of science beyond a high school education is necessary.

In The Infinite Cosmos Joseph Silk takes the reader on a tour of the universe, past, present, and future, showing how the very latest observations and theories are unlocking clues about its origin and structure: X-ray, radio, and high-energy views of space are revealing fossil radiation left over from the big bang and providing us with unprecedented views of the most distant reaches of the universe. Theories from the frontiers of current research seek to explain its structure from the first moments to the present day, and we are beginning to understand its extraordinary nature and possible fate. This is a story involving the visible and the invisible; subatomic particles and unusual forces; long ages of darkness and spectacular and violent events. It tells of supernovae, dark matter, dark energy, curved spacetime, colliding galaxies, and supermassive black holes. Weaving the ideas of poets and writers as well as scientists into the story, from Kant and Keats to Einstein and Lemaître, Silk explains our present state of knowledge, and how much more there is to understand about our infinite cosmos.

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.

This book is a simple, non-technical introduction to cosmology, explaining what it is and what cosmologists do. Peter Coles discusses the history of the subject, the development of the Big Bang theory, and more speculative modern issues like quantum cosmology, superstrings, and dark matter. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

For centuries, it was assumed that our universe was static. In the late 1920s, astronomers defeated this assumption with a startling new discovery. From Earth, the light of distant galaxies appeared to be red, meaning that those galaxies were receding from us. This led to the revolutionary realization that the universe is expanding. The Red Limit is the tale of this discovery, its ramifications, and the passionately competitive astronomers who charted the past, present, and future of the cosmos.

This book takes the reader on an exploration of the structure and evolution of our universe. The basis for our knowledge is the Big Bang theory of the expanding universe. This book then tells the story of our search for the first stars and galaxies using current and planned telescopes. These telescopes are marvels of technology far removed from Galileo's first telescope but continuing astronomy in his ground breaking spirit. We show the reader how these first stars and galaxies shaped the universe we see today. This story is one of the great scientific adventures of all time.

Advance Praise for The Accelerating Universe

"The Accelerating Universe is not only an informative book about modern cosmology. It is rich storytelling and, above all, a celebration of the human mind in its quest for beauty in all things."
—Alan Lightman, author of Einstein's Dreams

"This is a wonderfully lucid account of the extraordinary discoveries that have made the last years a golden period for observational cosmology. But Mario Livio has not only given the reader one clear explanation after another of what astronomers are up to, he has used them to construct a provocative argument for the importance of aesthetics in the development of science and for the inseparability of science, art, and culture."
—Lee Smolin, author of The Life of the Cosmos

"What a pleasure to read! An exciting, simple account of the universe revealed by modern astronomy. Beautifully written, clearly presented, informed by scientific and philosophical insights."
—John Bahcall, Institute for Advanced Study

"A book with charm, beauty, elegance, and importance. As authoritative a journey as can be taken through modern cosmology."
—Allan Sandage, Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington

Thomas Gold (1920-2004) had a curious mind that liked to solve problems. He was one of the most remarkable astrophysicists in the second half of the twentieth century, and he attracted controversy throughout his career. Based on a full-length autobiography left behind by Thomas Gold, this book was edited by the astrophysicist and historian of science, Simon Mitton (University of Cambridge).The book is a retrospective on Gold’s remarkable life. He fled from Vienna in 1933, eventually settling in England and completing an engineering degree at Trinity College in Cambridge. During the war, he worked on naval radar research alongside Fred Hoyle and Hermann Bondi – which, in an unlikely chain of events, eventually led to his working with them on steady-state cosmology. In 1968, shortly after their discovery, he provided the explanation of pulsars as rotating neutron stars.In his final position at Cornell, he and his colleagues persuaded the US Defense Department to fund the conversion of the giant radio telescope at Arecibo in Puerto Rico into a superb instrument for radio astronomy. Gold’s interests covered physiology, astronomy, cosmology, geophysics, and engineering.Written in an intriguing style and with an equally intriguing foreword by Freeman Dyson, this book constitutes an important historical document, made accessible to all those interested in the history of science. 

The year 2011 marked the 80th anniversary of Georges Lemaître’s primeval atom model of the universe, forerunner of the modern day Big Bang theory. Prompted by this momentous anniversary the Royal Astronomical Society decided to publish a volume of essays on the life, work and faith of this great cosmologist, who was also a Roman Catholic priest. The papers presented in this book examine in detail the historical, cosmological, philosophical and theological issues surrounding the development of the Big Bang theory from its beginnings in the pioneering work of Lemaître through to the modern day.This book offers the best account in English of Lemaître’s life and work. It will be appreciated by professionals and graduate students interested in the history of cosmology.

The scientific life of Fred Hoyle (1915–2001) was truly unparalleled. During his career he wrote groundbreaking scientific papers and caused bitter disputes in the scientific community with his revolutionary theories. Hoyle is best known for showing that we are all, literally, made of stardust in his paper explaining how carbon, and then all the heavier elements, were created by nuclear reactions inside stars. However, he constantly courted controversy and two years later he followed this with his 'steady state' theory of the universe. This challenged another model of the universe, which Hoyle called the 'big bang' theory. Fred Hoyle was also famous amongst the general public. He popularised his research through radio and television broadcasts and wrote best-selling novels. Written from personal accounts and interviews with Hoyle's contemporaries, this book gives valuable personal insights into Fred Hoyle and his unforgettable life.