Measuring and Modeling the Universe
Published on 26. August 2010
Book
Paperback/Softback
408 pages
978-0-521-14353-0 (ISBN)
Description
The twentieth century witnessed some remarkable discoveries: the 1917 publication of Einstein's general theory of relativity, Carnegie astronomer Edwin Hubble's 1929 discovery of the expansion of the universe, evidence for the existence of dark matter, and the discovery of a mysterious dark energy, which is causing the universe to speed up its expansion. This comprehensive volume reviews the theory and measurement of various parameters related to the evolution of the universe. Topics include inflation, string theory, the history of cosmology in the context of measurements being made of the Hubble constant, the matter density, and dark energy, including observational results from the Sloan, Digital Sky Survey, Keck, Magellan, cosmic microwave background experiments, Hubble space telescope and Chandra. With chapters by leading authorities in the field, this book is a valuable resource for graduate students and professional research astronomers.
Reviews / Votes
Review of the hardback: '... this book is an excellent description of the state of cosmology at the beginning of the 21st Century and can be used as a very useful tool for a graduate course in cosmology.' The ObservatoryMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
Worked examples or Exercises
Dimensions
Height: 244 mm
Width: 170 mm
Thickness: 23 mm
Weight
701 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-521-14353-0 (9780521143530)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Wendy Freedman is the Crawford H. Greenewalt Director at the Carnegie Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington in Pasadena, California.
Content
Introduction; List of participants; 1. A brief history of cosmology Malcolm S. Longair; 2. Edwin Hubble: a biographical retrospective Gale E. Christianson; 3. Inflation Alan H. Guth; 4. Update on string theory John H. Schwarz; 5. Dark matter theory Joseph Silk; 6. Status of cosmology on the occasion of the Carnegie Centennial Wendy L. Freedman and Michael S. Turner; 7. The extragalactic distance scale Joseph B. Jensen, John L. Tonry and John P. Blakeslee; 8. The Hubble constant from gravitational lens time delays Christopher S. Kochanek and Paul L. Schechter; 9. Measuring the Hubble constant with the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect Erik D. Reese; 10. How much is there of what? Measuring the mass density of the universe Virginia Trimble; 11. Big Bang nucleosynthesis: probing the first 20 minutes Gary Steigman; 12. Cosmological results from the 2dF galaxy redshift survey Matthew Colless; 13. Large-scale structure in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Mariangela Bernardi; 14. LIGO at the threshold of science operations Albert Lazzarini; 15. Why is the universe accelerating? Sean M. Carroll; 16. Cosmology and life Mario Livio; 17. Evidence from Type Ia supernova for an accelerating universe and dark energy Alexei V. Filippenko; 18. Theoretical overview of cosmic microwave background anisotropy Edward L. Wright; 19. The polarization of the cosmic microwave background Matias Zaldarriaga; 20. The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe Lyman A. Page; 21. Interference observations of the cosmic microwave background radiation Anthony C. S. Readhead and Timothy J. Pearson; 22. Conference summary: observational cosmology Sandra M. Faber; 23. Measuring and modeling the universe: a theoretical perspective Roger D. Blandford; Credits.