{"product_id":"cosmology-and-controversy-9780691005461","title":"Cosmology and Controversy","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eCosmology and Controversy\u003c\/strong\u003e by Kragh, Helge. paperback edition. ISBN: 9780691005461.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor 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.\n\nIn the 1920s, Alexander Friedmann and Georges Lemaître showed that Einsteins 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 Hubbles 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 todays commentary about our universe.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Princeton University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44986582630453,"sku":"ByrdShop_069100546X","price":47.06,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780691005461_0b5e3268-6a49-442f-bf36-b725e132c18f.jpg?v=1778723801","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/cosmology-and-controversy-9780691005461","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}