{"product_id":"cosmology-and-controversy-book-helge-kragh-9780691026237","title":"Cosmology and Controversy","description":"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 Lemaitre 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, any 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.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49599054676241,"sku":"GOR011686207","price":11.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49882709852433,"sku":"CIN0691026238G","price":6.08,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52621557760273,"sku":"CIN0691026238VG","price":6.43,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0691026238.jpg?v=1751136186","url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/products\/cosmology-and-controversy-book-helge-kragh-9780691026237","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}