The Accelerating Universe: Infinite Expansion, the Cosmological Constant, and the Beauty of the Cosmos (Wiley Popular Science) - Hardcover

Inhaltsangabe

Astronomers recently discovered that the universe may be expanding at an ever-increasing rate. This discovery of an 'accelerating universe' stunned many cosmologists because it directly contradicts their most deeply held beliefs that the universe will expand at a gradually decreasing rate until the expansion effectively stops.
What can explain this accelerated expansion? Does the universe have much less mass than originally thought? Is there some exotic unknown force, or new kind of energy, causing acceleration? Was Einstein's idea of a cosmological constant the right idea after all? What will the ultimate fate of the universe be? Must there be beauty in all good theories of the cosmos? Or are some of the laws governing the universe 'ugly'?
In an entertaining and lively exploration of the answers to all these questions, Mario Livio introduces readers to the 'old cosmology', which culminated in the view of the perfectly balanced universe, and then presents all of the ideas beeing explored by cosmologists in the 'new cosmology' as they come to terms with the discovery of acceleration. Offering extraordinarily clear explanations of all the key concepts and theoretical ideas, Livio is a marvelous guide through this most exciting frontier in science today.

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