Author: John Gribbin
Publisher: Universities Press
Year: 2000
Language: English
Pages: 216
ISBN/UPC (if available): 8173713375
Description
This book unfolds the story of one of the great scientific puzzles of our time - the mystery of the age of the Universe - and how this mystery was finally solved.
This is the story of one of the great scientific puzzles of our time—the mystery of the age of the Universe—and how this mystery was finally solved.
The Birth of Time is an intriguing tale of false leads, blind alleys, and groping in the semi-dark towards the truth, told by a brilliant science writer who was involved, as a research astronomer, in the final breakthrough.
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction: The Age Controversy: How Wrong is Wrong?
1. All Things Must Pass: The Discovery of Cosmic Time
2. Age Limits: The Oldest Things in the Universe
3. Across the Universe: The First Cosmic Distance Scale
4. Into the Blue: Beyond the Milky Way
5. Hubble’s Law: A Universe with a Beginning
6. Revisionist Cosmology: Extending the Age of the Universe
7. New Rulers: From Controversy to Consensus
8. When Time Began: How we Measured the Age of the Universe
Further Reading
Index