History of Science & Knowledge
Cosmology and Controversy: The Historical Development of Two Theories of the Universe
Paperback
ebook
- Sale Price:
- $45.50/£38.50
- Price:
-
$65.00/£55.00 - ISBN:
- Published:
- Mar 9, 2021
- Copyright:
- 1996
- 4 tables 23 line illus.
- Main_subject:
- History of Science & Knowledge
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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 Lemaître 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.
Awards and Recognition
- Honorable Mention for the 1997 Award for Best Professional/Scholarly Book in Physics and Astronomy, Association of American Publishers
- One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 1997