The Inflationary Universe: The Quest for a New Theory of Cosmic Origins - Softcover

H Guth, Alan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 009995950X ISBN 13: 9780099959502

Publisher: Vintage, 1998

Synopsis

This classic Big Bang text neatly describes what happened after the bang. Yet, until recently, particle physicists and cosmologists were stuck on many questions that the Big Bang Theory still couldn't answer, primarily: If matter can neither be created nor destroyed, how could so much matter arise from nothing at all? Alan Guth's Inflationary Universe Theory answers these vexing questions. When NASA's Cosmic Background Explorer satellite measured the non-uniformities of the cosmic background radiation for the first time in 1992, the patterns agreed exquisitely with the theory's predictions.

About this title

Review:

Just about everyone in the scientific community accepts the theory that our universe began in a "big bang"--but that theory leaves numerous unanswered questions about why the cosmos formed in just the manner we observe today. In The Inflationary Universe, physicist Alan Guth recounts his and others' struggle to expound a theory that could plug the gaps. The outcome is a theory of "inflation" that postulates that the universe underwent an incomprehensibly large expansion in the first fraction of a microsecond of its existence. With the perspective that only a first-person account could provide, The Inflationary Universe sheds light on a leading theory in humankind's continuing quest to understand the universe we live in.

Review:

"Mind-blowing stuff" (Sunday Times)

"[Alan Guth's] remarkably lucid account is set to become a seminal text in cosmology...helping us up the learning curve without ever making recourse to unfriendly mathematical equations" (Literary Review)

"[Guth] conveys how science can be an intensely social and interactive activity, and the erratic and fitful way in which new ideas clarify" (The Times)

"One of the most fascinating and fundamental fields of human enquiry...handsomely rewards study" (Financial Times)

About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 009995950X
• ISBN 13: 9780099959502
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384