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| View Larger Image | Einsteins Greatest Blunder?: The Cosmological Constant and Other Fudge Factors in the Physics of the Universe (Questions of Science)
by Donald Goldsmith
| | List Price: | $25.00 |  | | Available: | Usually ships in 24 hours | | | | | Sales Rank: | 2042404 | | Studio: | Harvard University Press | | | Binding: | Hardcover | | Number Of Pages: | 248 | | Publication Date: | August 04, 1995 | | Publisher: | Harvard University Press |
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EDITORIAL REVIEWS |
Product Description
The Big Bang: A Big Bust? The cosmos seems to be in crisis, and you don't have to be a rocket scientist to see it. How, for instance, can the universe be full of stars far older than itself? How could space have once expanded faster than the speed of light? How can most of the matter in the universe be "missing"? And what kind of truly weird matter could possibly account for ninety percent of the universe's total mass? This brief and witty book, by the award-winning science writer Donald Goldsmith, takes on these and other key questions about the origin and evolution of the cosmos. By clearly laying out what we currently know about the universe as a whole, Goldsmith lets us see firsthand, and judge for ourselves, whether modern cosmology is in a state of crisis. Einstein's Greatest Blunder? puts the biggest subject of all--the story of the universe as scientists understand it--within the grasp of English-speaking earthlings. When Albert Einstein confronted a cosmological contradiction, in 1917, his solution was to introduce a new term, the "cosmological constant." For a time, this mathematical invention solved discrepancies between his model and the best observations available, but years later Einstein called it the "greatest blunder" of his career. And yet the cosmological constant is still alive today--it is one of the "fudge factors" employed by cosmologists to make their calculations fit the observational data. Theoretical cosmologists, shows Goldsmith, continually reshape their models in an honest (if sometimes futile) effort to explain apparent chaos as cosmic harmony--whether their specific concern is the age and expansion rate of the cosmos, hot versus cold "dark matter," the inflationary theory of the big bang, the explanation of large-scale structure, or the density and future of the universe. Engagingly written and richly illustrated with photographs taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, Einstein's Greatest Blunder? is a feast for the eye and mind. |
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.0 based on 2 reviews)
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Understanding the stars 
This book is all about the stars, where they came from, how they got there, and how long they'll be there plus the methods scientists (astronomers) figured these things out. For anyone with a science-geared brain, this book is great. I'm currently taking physics at my high school, this book really helped me to understand the concepts and formulas in a "behind the scenes" way. The language used by the author is occasionally hard to understand but it's a book you have to read slowly in order to understand it all. The concepts that involve things from later discussed topics have references to the chapter they can be found in. It's a really in-depth and well-written book for anyone with an interest in astronomy or science in general. Some of the concepts discussed are the age of stars which can be determined according to their surface temperature and luminosity, the doppler effect which explains the motion of stars and planets due to the fact that wavelengths shorten when an observer or source moves toward the other and lengthen in the opposite way, the kind of star or star group and what the characteristics of each are, and the nature of gravity in space according to several astronomers and scientists like Newton, Einstein, Galileo, etc. The book also includes many pictures and diagrams to help the average reader understand the specific topics of each chapter.
March 11, 2002 | |
Understanding the stars
This book is all about the stars, where they came from, how they got there, and how long they'll be there plus the methods scientists (astronomers) figured these things out. For anyone with a science-geared brain, this book is great. I'm currently taking physics at my high school, this book really helped me to understand the concepts and formulas in a "behind the scenes" way. The language used by the author is occasionally hard to understand but it's a book you have to read slowly in order to understand it all. The concepts that involve things from later discussed topics have references to the chapter they can be found in. It's a really in-depth and well-written book for anyone with an interest in astronomy or science in general. Some of the concepts discussed are the age of stars which can be determined according to their surface temperature and luminosity, the doppler effect which explains the motion of stars and planets due to the fact that wavelengths shorten when an observer or source moves toward the other and lengthen in the opposite way, the kind of star or star group and what the characteristics of each are, and the nature of gravity in space according to several astronomers and scientists like Newton, Einstein, Galileo, etc. The book also includes many pictures and diagrams to help the average reader understand the specific topics of each chapter.
March 11, 2002 | |
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