Mała księga kosmologii

by Lyman Page, Jan Jakub Borkała (Translator)

Wyprawa do granic wszechświata i granic kosmologii

W każdej sekundzie z samych krawędzi obserwowalnego wszechświata dociera do nas słabe promieniowanie – relikt burzliwej młodości kosmosu – zwane mikrofalowym promieniowaniem tła. W Małej księdze kosmologii czołowy badacz tego promieniowania Lyman Page zabiera nas w oszałamiającą podróż po naszej obecnej wiedzy o rozmiarach, budowie i początkach uniwersum. Łącząc najnowsze ustalenia kosmologii obserwacyjnej z przystępnie wprowadzanymi koncepcjami fizycznymi, Page wyjaśnia, jak na podstawie drobnych nieregularności mikrofalowego promieniowania tła kosmologom udało się precyzyjnie zrekonstruować historię kosmosu, ustalić jego kształt, skład, strukturę i tempo ekspansji. Z perspektywy tej wiedzy, zebranej w tzw. standardowym modelu kosmologicznym, widać jednak wyraźnie, jak wiele wciąż nie rozumiemy. Docierając do granic kosmologii, Page dobitnie ukazuje, że przed nami jeszcze mnóstwo fascynujących odkryć.

Genres: Science, Physics, Nonfiction, Astronomy, Space, American, Stem

176 pages, Hardcover

Published September 9, 2021

Reviews

[Nikola · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book tries to speak to the general public using many analogies to make cosmological observations easier to grasp. I was still lost at times, but I think it does a good job of highlighting the most important concepts. It takes care to explain, for each new piece of information, how we arrived to it, which gave me a new appreciation for the inventiveness of the scientists in this field.

[Lauren Dill · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book The Little Book of Cosmology by Lyman Page is a fantastic introduction to the principles of cosmology for an intermediate level person in this field. This book is a comprehensive walk through all of the principles of cosmology from the big bang to an introduction to quantum mechanics. This book does not include math, and is extremely principle heavy, so it is comprehensible to someone who doesn’t have a background in calculus or advanced theoretical physics. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants a more advanced and in depth analysis and description of cosmological principles than the brief history of time by stephen hawking offers, but not as advanced as a full on cosmology tesxtbook. This book was enjoyable for me to read because I already have a mathematical background in these areas that the little book of cosmology covered, so it helped me visualize these abstract concepts better than I previously had. Overall, I really enjoyed this book and it was an extremely fun book to read

[Lije · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is based mostly on my expectations from some descriptions I had read, but it was simply too technical. I realize the subject requires a certain amount of technical discussion and math, but…way more than I was hoping for.

[Michael Martinez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Anyone who wants a general overview of cosmology from the heliocentric, non-MOND, inflation theory, and evolutionary system, can pick up this book and grasp all sorts of things like cosmic epochs; this book is essentially an overview of Big Bang cosmology. A lot of cool things to pick up in this book, like the Hubble-Lemaître Law that would actually prove geocentrism if the relativist hypothesis is falsified (which can be done by building a sufficiently powerful telescope on another cosmic body and using it to observe if everything also looks like it is going away from that body like it does when looking from Earth; this is my suggestion, you won’t find this in the book as physicists like this author would rather not let heliocentrism be falsified). I think the CMB being a blackbody is pretty cool. Wein’s Displacement Law is something else I found cool. The author frequently says that what he is saying is simply observable fact, but this is not actually true for everything in the book, like the inflation model which is very much unproven (physicists even disagree on whether or not the universe is flat under this model, or if it curves ever so slightly at the cosmic poles). The whole thing of telescopes being time machines I think is just complete nonsense (but a useful assumption for cosmic evolutionists). As shown in the book, we can easily measure these distances in miles, and I think it is pretty clear that light years are used as a kind of psychological tool to reinforce the evolutionary model as light years provokes thinking about time in the way that miles or kilometers do not. Dark matter I think is nonsense too, I think it is pretty clear that the Einsteinian theory of gravity is just probably wrong, no need to posit some elusive dark matter. Prior to reading this book, I was not aware that the periodic elements are just gradually heavier hydrogen atoms as it were, and I found that pretty interesting as it would suggest that hydrogen functions as a kind of grounding element (very Neoplatonic in a way). Plenty of cool stuff in this little book, but it should be taken in with a grain of salt.

[Aga]

- o czym jest książka-

„Mała księga kosmologii” to (popularno)naukowe opracowanie, w którym Lyman Page – profesor fizyki na Uniwersytecie Princeton – zabiera czytelnika w podróż do najgłębszych zakamarków znanego nam wszechświata (i o dziwo – spoiler alert – jest to podróż bardziej w czasie niż przestrzeni ;D).

- co w niej znajdziecie-

Książka mogłaby stanowić podręcznik do wprowadzenia do kosmologii. Znajdziecie w niej naukowy opis podstawowych zagadnień w tej dziedzinie:

·        Z czego składa się wszechświat;

·        Jak powstał i co się z nim dzieje;

·        Jak łączą się jego poszczególne składniki i jak wzajemnie oddziaływają.

Główną rolę w narracji odgrywa MPT – czyli mikrofalowe promieniowanie tła.

+ podsumowuje najważniejsze kwestie w kosmologii

+ ciekawe zagadnienia

+/- bardzo szczegółowa

- dużo fachowego słownictwa

- konieczne bardzo dobre rozumienie podstawowych zasad fizyki

- zagadnienia mogłyby zostać przedstawione bardziej przystępnie

-ogólna ocena-

Książkę polecałabym komuś, kto chce ugruntować wiedzę astronomiczną, ale jednocześnie bardzo dobrze rozumie podstawowe zasady fizyki. Mi w wielu miejscach bardzo ciężko było ją zrozumieć – mimo, że sporo czytam na ten temat. Na pewno odradzam osobom, które dopiero chcą zainteresować się tematem lub zgłębić podstawy kosmologii, lecz nie mają dobrze opanowanych podstaw z fizyki.

[c00l_read · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75/5⭐️
Bardzo przyjemna i łatwa w odbiorze pozycja. Cała książka jest dopracowana i treściwa. Dla osób, które chcą dowiedzieć się więcej o fizycznej stronie kosmosu naprawdę polecam👍🏼

[Dominik Chromicz · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 książka bardzo dobrze napisana natomiast druga połowa była bardzo ciężka szczególnie rozdział o MPT,wiec nie jest to absolutnie książka dla początkujących.

[Castonço]

Not even going to rate this book... pretty sure I did not get it.

[Alan Davies · Rating 3 out of 5]

Weatherpersons still tell us when sunrise and sunset will occur. Brilliant scientists persist in telling us that such-and-such “obeys the laws of nature” – whether talking about matter or forces. We know that the sun neither rises nor sets / and have known so for centuries. We know that the “laws of nature” are created by human thinkers / just as are eg civil or religious laws / that they don’t in any sense exist out there. Knowledge moves much faster than language.

Lyman Page is professor of physics at Princeton. He co-edited a book called Finding the Big Bang. He was an originator of the WMAP Project (Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe) which launched an unmanned spacecraft to measure CMB / electro-magnetic radiation left over from the Big Bang. Turns out you can learn a lot about the origins and development of this universe by plotting temperature differentials in the CMB.

Our knowledge of the universe is encapsulated in what we call the Standard Model of Cosmology, and it agrees remarkably well with observation. It is predictive, testable, and could easily be falsified or augmented if that were called for. Among other things, the model says that the universe is comprised of about 5% atomic material, the stuff of which we are made; about 25% “dark matter” and 70% “dark energy.” Based on Einstein’s theory of gravity, the Standard Model specifies how the various components of the universe evolve from the very earliest times to the present.

It is the composition of the universe that tells it how to evolve. Page and other physicists are interested in the evolution of the universe / especially the earliest seconds after the big bang / and the days and centuries that followed. Indeed, most of what we learn from it comes from tiny variations in its temperature from position to position across the sky.

Page demonstrates how in this universe’s evolution the components work together to form stars, galaxies, and clusters of galaxies.

We say that in the observable universe, the subset of the whole universe that is observable by us in principle, there are roughly 100 billion galaxies, each typically with about 100 billion stars.

He writes that at the present time the universe looks, in broad brushstrokes, similar throughout its expanse. The phrase in broad brushstrokes is / I think / important here. Isn’t it the case that the farther we get from things the more uniform the appearance? Standing in a forest we see branches and leaves / the trunks of the trees / light and shadow / the floor of the forest / light. After leaving the forest / looking back we see the intervening ground / many tree trunks / green leaves growing from branches. If we step back further / we no longer see the individual trees but / instead / an area of darkness for some height above the ground / and a mass of green above that / the sky overhead. Further away / and even those details may be lost to our sight. If we see the forest from above / it looks very much like a patch of moss growing over some portion of the land. The cosmological principle says that the universe is homogeneous when averaged over a large enough volume. That would have to be the case / wouldn’t it? Somebody / or somebodies / decide what a large enough volume means. The universe doesn’t tell us how to perceive it. We might still accept aspects of Page’s point / which would mean that there are no big surprises as we travel across the universe. There isn’t somewhere a massive cluster of densely organized galaxies / for example / or an exceptionally large part of the universe where there is nothing. The cosmological principle also says that on average, the universe looks the same in each direction. This property is called isotropy. … Recall that at any fixed age, the universe looks the same everywhere.

The farther a celestial object is from us the faster it is moving away from us. The Hubble-Lemaître law says that for every million light-years away you observe an object, its recessional speed increases by about 15 miles per second. It’s difficult for me to envision what a million light-years means / but I imagine Page and his colleagues have a very workable idea. I understand that a light-year means using the speed of light to measure distance / and speed involves the magnitude of motion relative to space – so it represents a unity of spacetime. I can conceive of time and space being infinite / indeed cannot conceive of them being finite – yet can’t conceive of what a light year really means in terms of distance. As I see it – Infinity is the salient feature of the universe. That and change.

The main point here is that as long as the speed of recession is proportional to distance, all observers in the universe see the same pattern of recession and to all it appears that they are in the center of the expansion.

It is not that space (whatever that is?!) is a fixed property or entity and the galaxies etc expanding within it. It is the space between the galaxies that is expanding.

The Big Bang was not like a bomb exploding billions of years ago. The Big Bang marked the beginning of an expansion of space, everywhere at a fixed time in our distant past.

Perhaps we should underline the words an expansion of space . More local to us / the expansion has little or no effect / at least on our understanding of things. Gravity binds our solar system together tightly / and even our galaxy is not expanding. And clusters of galaxies are pulled together / which slows the expansion. Furthermore / because the rate of expansion does occur relative to matter and its makeup / and because that changes / the rate of expansion has not always been the same. And what’s more – There is a difference between the distance to an object when the light we observe was emitted and the distance at this instant after accounting for the expansion of the universe. Heraclitus – You can’t step in the same river twice. Heraclitus again – The only constant in life is change.

There isn’t enough matter to account fully for the motions of the stars and galaxies. There has to exist something additional if we are to explain what we see occurring between masses in the universe. One way to think about this expansion rate is that space is being made at an accelerated pace. And the expansion rate is itself increasing. Galaxies that are widely separated now will soon apparently be moving apart faster than the speed of light. … We do not know how long the exponential expansion will last. Dark matter hasn’t been observed in a laboratory. One possibility is that it’s a new type of elementary particle / or different types of particles. It is called dark because it does not interact significantly with protons. There are lots of gaps and anomalies in our understanding of the universe. That’s what can make doing physics fun. Or even reading about it.

There is a limit to how far back in time our knowledge reaches / even using CMB modeling. We cannot extrapolate back to zero density or zero time: we don’t know how because the laws of physics break down. (I have a strange feeling that the laws of physics are breaking down all the time. Don’t you?) Our whole cosmic history can be read by looking ever deeper into space, because as we do so we look farther back in time. In other words, telescopes are like time machines.

*

The word cosmos / unlike the word universe / expresses order – therefore an orderly universe / a universe manifesting (as) order. Page’s use of the word makes that big claim about the reality of which we find ourselves little bits. Chaos theory has also been popular. Page says – No / there is order to the universe / to how things are and to how they develop. There are three major components to the universe: radiation, matter, and dark energy. I would have thought also about the forces that keep the universe the way it is / and determine the way it’s changing. Page has already said that matter determines how the universe changes – that is what he emphasizes. But that could not be the case if the universe did not change matter / as it is doing by expanding. The CMB is radiation / the part of the whole that has inspired Page’s work. The matter component is divided into two subcomponents, atoms and dark matter.

The third major component is the dark energy. In contrast to the CMB, it is important for understanding the current state of the universe and its future expansion, but was insignificant in the early universe. It is the component we understand least. We’ve only known of its existence since the 1990s and are still trying to connect it to the rest of physics.

As the universe has developed / one or another of these forms of energy/mass has dominated.

The CMB came from an era when the matter in the universe was in thermal equilibrium with the radiation. We must also take into consideration that – When the universe expands, the wavelengths of light are stretched in proportion to the expansion. … We see distant objects not only as they were when they were younger, we also see them through stretched wavelengths. The speed at which we see galaxies etc escalate is a function of the expansion of space. The phenomenon is called the cosmological red-shift. A redshift represents an increase in the wavelength of a light-emitting body – the red end of the spectrum is more energetic than the blue end.

To summarize, early in our cosmic history, when the CMB was incredibly hot, it was the dominant form of energy density. … As the universe expanded and the CMB dimmed, matter became the dominant form of energy density, leading to a new set of phenomena. Most important, it allowed structure to form. … In contrast, the early universe is a near uniform primordial soup of hot thermal radiation (CMB photons), electrons, protons, neutrons, neutrinos, and dark matter.

So the question is – How did we get from soup to nuts? The physical process behind the formation of cosmic structure is gravitational instability. Gravitational effects have not been constant – those variations have caused a clumping of particles / eventually coalescing as matter.

We noted above that early on radiation dominated the universe – then it was matter. Now, in the current epoch, the cosmological constant dominates. It will do so increasingly. Wikipedia defines it as the energy density of space, or vacuum energy, that arises in quantum mechanics. And notes that – It is closely associated with the concept of dark energy.

I don’t believe in anything – I don’t trust my senses – and I’ve experienced forcefully the idiocies my mind is capable of. All the qualifying factors physicists have to include as they attempt to create an accurate model resonate with my sense experiences / and my sense of them. No definition is ever complete – in order to define the way things are and to cover for various possible contingencies it is in constant need of additional and re- definition. That process is endless. We’ll never really know / not in the ways we keep trying to.

*

Mapping the CMB has dramatically expanded our understanding of this universe –

We can give the detailed accounting we have—the cosmic energy densities versus time, the ratio of hydrogen to helium, the epochs for different processes—because these quantities affect the CMB in characteristic and measurable ways.

Measuring the temperature variations is challenging – the difference in temperature for different directions in the sky is tiny, typically one ten-thousandth of a kelvin or 0.003%. It is impossible to do so with any accuracy from Earth because of / among other things / interference from Earth’s atmosphere. The WMAP project overcame that difficulty by positioning a spacecraft well outside Earth’s atmosphere / and with the ability to probe space as far and in as many directions as possible. Remember that measuring temperature variations is equivalent to measuring wavelengths / which we can also experience as color. An instrument called a bolometer is used – they can measure a temperature difference smaller than one ten-thousandth of a kelvin. The CMB fluctuations are random.

In chapter three / Mapping the Cosmic Microwave Background / Page elucidates – which conditions have to be overcome / what adjustments have to be made as a result of the various conditions / and what is learned from doing so. He describes in detail how the temperature differences occur. It’s a comprehensive chapter / and more scientifically demanding than the others. It’s possible for a layperson to understand it / but I won’t explain it at length because of how technical it is and how much varied information it contains.

Page writes that –

It is a testament to the universality of physics that predictions can be made for what should happen in the early universe based on measurements made on Earth, and that those predictions can be tested.

I also find that rather remarkable / but think it needs to be questioned. The fact that we experience – continue to experience – ourselves as being at the center of the universe can’t help but affect what we perceive/experience. If we accept that the universe appears to be quite uniform from place to place / no matter in which direction we look / we must still be being affected by thinking ourselves at the center of all that. The thinking we’ve done up to this point greatly affects thinking that we’re doing now / and thinking that we’ll do in the future. We have memories / stored throughout our bodies – we don’t start from scratch with each thought / each perception / each feeling / each experience. That is true of us as individuals / and it is true of the various collectivities humans form / including our species as a whole. To continue to think anthropocentrically places a huge limit on who we are and what we do. Consider the climate disaster we have made for our planet because of / in considerable part / that self-centered way of thinking. Consider the Earth’s overpopulation / arrived at almost entirely without thinking. We’re not very smart / we’re near sighted / we’re selfish / we’re aggressive / but we continue to insist that we are at the zenith of what we then think of as ours. That goes for those of us who believe we’ve been created and those who think we’ve evolved. Big problem. Big mistake.

Physicists can use Earth’s velocity (about 0.1% the speed of light) relative to what they’re looking at / in order to calibrate their measuring instruments. It is satisfying to think of calibrating variations in light from the edge of the universe with the motion of the Earth around the Sun. Again / it is. But continuing to focus so much on Earth when evidently trying to see far beyond it / cannot but affect what is and what is not seen / what is and isn’t known. We need to remember also that we use languages to try to make sense of the world. And language is woefully inadequate / especially when precision is required.

*

As the universe expands / which it has been doing ever since the Big Bang / that expansion affects not only the space itself but also the stuff in it.

The model is that quantum fluctuations in the primordial energy density were stretched out to cosmic scales through the inflation of space. The fluctuations in the primordial field are now seen as the gravitational landscape that produced the hot and cold spots in the CMB. This means that when we look at the CMB we are looking directly at a manifestation of quantum processes. The random distribution in space of the hot and cold patches is a result of our quantum origins. We usually associate quantum processes with taking place on an atomic or subatomic scale. This is still true; it is just that inflation expands space so much that the quantum scale becomes the cosmic scale, a mind-blowing concept.

I find the fact that the CMB-derived model unifies the physics of the micro with that of the macro a big plus in its favor. With the use of CMB imaging a map of the distribution of galaxies throughout much of the universe is now available. The Little Book of Cosmology deals with one among several prominent models for how the universe has been expanding through spacetime / the processes within that expansion / and what it might do in the future. Physicists still have not been able to integrate gravity with the other known forces / but perhaps this subatomic/cosmic unity is a start.

*

In the final chapter / Frontiers of Cosmology / Page explores briefly some of the theoretical departures from the standard model. The standard model of cosmology is so successful that it is now a foundation from which we can look for departures. He discusses those often competing theories in terms of – neutrinos / gravitational waves / structure formation and basic physics / and clusters of galaxies. Those alternatives differ from his own way of thinking but he treats them with respect.

The book ends with a section called Summary and Conclusions.

The dramatic advance in cosmology has occurred through the ability to compare models to measurements. It turns out that the early universe is simple and that the physics that describes it is straightforward. It did not have to be this way, but Nature was kind in letting us learn so much.

Again / his personification of nature / putting us at its center / will have shaped not only what he now thinks / but also how he went about coming to his conclusions. In a way / I think what he has written here is an unconscious admission that some of his ideas have done more to shape his emergent theories than he would have thought. Physics tells us as much about our own minds as it does about the physical world of which we are a part.


/ copyright © 2021 Alan Davies

[ This is an edit of the complete article. idonot@mail.com ]

[Hugo Bucquet · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good intro to cosmology. The first chapters are really good, but the later ones tend to dive a bit too quickly into technical details about the CMB and are a bit harder to follow. However, the physics are still very well explained and give great intuition. Would definitely recommend.

[Małgosia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bardzo skomplikowana, na pewno nie na początek z literaturą popularnonaukową o kosmosie.

Autor pisze o zagadanieniach, z którymi ja w książkach popularnonaukowych się jeszcze nie spotkałam, co uważam za plus. Styl jest zwięzły i na temat, ale bez większego polotu. Jest to ciekawy przegląd najważniejszych problemów współczesnej kosmologii, ale wielu informacji nie zapamiętam, bo zostałam zarzucona faktami i pojęciami, które dla totalnego laika byłyby moim zdaniem nie do przejścia.

[James Maiorana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Little book, big ideas. Lyman Page tells us what we know about the universe and how we know it. I thought some portions needed more explanation - but for a book meant to be short it gave a pretty good synopsis of the last 13.8 trillion years. It whet my appetite to learn more about the subject.

[Łukasz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Boże, strasznie ciężko mi się to czytało. A dalej o Mikrofalowym Promieniowaniu Tła niewiele wiem oprócz tego że jest.

[Ashley Lambert-Maberly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another one of those maddening books that are wonderful and dreadful at the same time, so I'm averaging it out.

As is often the case when I'm reading scientific books for fun, especially if it's in the hard sciences rather than the soft sciences, it starts out well enough, and then I increasingly become stupid. Now, as that seems unlikely (to rapidly lose one's faculties over the course of a book), I suspect that what's actually in play is the book has become more confusing, and for that I can blame the author. I've read several very good books on equally challenging topics where the author managed to carrry me through to the end, unbewildered, but that is not the case here. Things began to falter a third of the way in, and by the halfway point I was hopelessly mired in a muddle.

It did not help, I imagine, that I was reading on a small b&w Kindle where the illustrations could not be fully appreciated, but I dare say I would still be 99% muddled even with a large, colorful, physical copy of the book.

I think the main problem is (assuming everyone's right about the science) that many qualities of the universe simply appear ludicrous, and it takes more explaining to get people to understand/believe such outré facts, even if true. (I'm experiencing it now reading The Obesity Code, where almost everything I've learned about food and diet is up-ended ... but the author gently guides you through step-by-step and is crystal clear on his points). For instance, Page asserts that the universe is largely made up something that scientists have not seen or identified, but they're fairly sure it's there. (Wikipedia concurs, as I check my facts ... the universe is 5% ordinary matter and energy, and 95% stuff we haven't really discovered yet). And that's hard to swallow: you'd think if the universe were 95% something-or-other, we'd be bumping into it all the time, especially since it's not all in Alpha Centauri, it's evenly distributed across the place.

So then off he goes into more math, proving that when you divide this by that, and those things, and then this other thing happens, and here's a grainy b&w diagram, so of course dark energy = the cosmological constant, and my brain slips out of my head again and I have to stuff it back and hope the next chapter is more intelligble.

Or maybe it's just me, but I've taught myself Japanese, did a Masters in Art History, got into Law School, and work as the senior analyst for a major public institution, so I feel I've got the ability, and if I can't follow something it's the author's fault. (When I was young, there were some books that were clearly over my head, but once I was at university I was disappointed that I still had trouble grasping certain works—when would I be old enough for them?—but my mentor told me "If you can't follow it, then it's not you, it's badly written," and wasn't that a revelation!)

5* = amazing, terrific book, one of my all-time favourites, 4* = very good book, 3* = good book, but nothing to particularly rave about, 2* = disappointing book, and 1* = awful, just awful. As a statistician I know most books are 3s, but I am biased in my selection and end up mostly with 4s, thank goodness.)

[Thomas Wikman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh the wonderful things the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) can tell us!

This is a short book describing the evolution of the Universe since the Big Bang and its composition. How do we know all this stuff? The Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) can tell us a lot. The CMB is a black body radiation remnant from the time (400,000 years ago) when the Universe had cooled enough to allow the formation of hydrogen atoms and the decoupling of photons from electrons so that they could roam free. CMB is in itself evidence for the Big Bang but in addition we get additional information from the minor anisotropy and polarization of the CMB, and add the composition of the elements (hydrogen, helium, lithium, and heavier elements), redshifts of galaxies, gravity lensing, and we can tell quite a bit about the evolution of the Universe and where it is heading. It’s fascinating science detective work. This eventually leads to the Standard Model of Cosmology, which is something I’ve never heard of before, but it’s cool.

I found the facts about the size and age of the Universe, the early giant stars in the Universe, dark energy and dark matter, very interesting. The book is filled with basic and fascinating facts that I did not know. Because of the CMB (rather than particle accelerator experiments) we know roughly the mass (rest mass) of neutrinos. We know why dark energy can’t be space dust, or rogue planetoids, or black holes or neutrinos, so what is it? The book explains why it can’t be any of those. There’s a lot we can know because of the CMB and other information, and some things we don’t know. Finding out what we do know was quite exciting and finding out what the mysterious “what we don’t know” was equally exciting. Again, the focus is on CMB and how it is measured, it tells us a lot.

The book is easy to read and require no degree in physics or mathematics. I admit I have a degree in Engineering Physics, and I am also interested in astronomy and cosmology, but I can tell it was light reading. It is a truly popular science book like those that Neil De Grasse Tyson writes, and it was short but very informative. There’s a lot of information you can extract from CMB. It was a fun short read for anyone interested in the mysteries of the Universe.

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Admirably clear in its explanations, with much use of analogies. Doesn't try to go very much into the very early universe like the Big Bang. It's much more interested in the events that produced the Cosmic Microwave Background and what we can learn about the universe from it. Inflation is covered insofar as quantum fluctuations are amplified by inflation into the patches of the CMB. I especially liked the book's explanation of how competing forces resulted in various events, and the section about the inputs to the Standard Model of Cosmology. I would have liked to have read more about how finetuned those inputs are (if at all). Even so it filled in gaps in knowledge that I had from other books, so I'm happy to have read this one.

[Eduardo Lima Águila · Rating 4 out of 5]

Creo que es un muy buen libro y que sería mejor tener en físico, por las imágenes que trae y que en el kindle no se podían ver a color. Sin embargo siento que termina siendo demasiado técnico, en el borde de lo que es un libro de divulgación. La primera parte me parece muy accesible, pero cuando empieza a hablar de la radiación de fondo de microondas, que ya no soltará el resto, el libro se torna de un tono bastante más especializado. Creo que quienes tengan alguna formación técnica, o mayores conocimientos técnicos, verán este libro como un buen resumen de cosmología, casi como un libro referencial, pero para quienes no, el público en general, creo que termina rebasando en adelante nuestras capacidades. Tampoco facilita las cosas que no esté en español jaja

[fishie!! :3 · Rating 4 out of 5]

[6/26/25] As someone who has a deep interest in the sciences of the universe, I am quite glad I picked this up, as it gave a lot of insight into a topic I wasn't very familiar with. It was just scientific enough not to be pampering to the reader, but not advanced enough to overly confuse. I also really liked the length of the book; it is pretty short as to not be overwhelming, but still communicates a lot of pertinent and interesting information in an effective way. I think overall the book struck a good balance, and I was appreciative of the many analogies provided. But as with most scientific literature I read, I think I'd have to reread to fully understand everything. I am certain I will come back to this book in the future, and I am looking forward to it :)

[Yves · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantástico

Essa é a melhor introdução à cosmologia que já li. Adorei a organização do livro e a capacidade do autor de explicar as ideias e os conceitos de forma acessível a uma ampla audiência. Apesar de curto, o nível de detalhes não deixou a desejar. Sempre li referências superficiais dizendo que entendemos como o universo se comportou desde os primeiros segundos do big bang, mas eu não entendia o que isso queria dizer. Esse livro me ajudou a entender como cientistas construíram modelos cosmológicos e o que conseguimos prever (ou não) com esses modelos. Recomendo a todos interessados no nosso Universo.

[ExtraGravy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a surprisingly excellent and accessible overview of modern cosmology. I learned quite a bit from this slim book. It wasn't the easiest read but where it was difficult it was rewarding. I really don't think I understood the value and criticality of the CMB properly until I read this.

I recommend this book to anyone interested in cosmology, needing to get up-to-date.

If you don't find these topics fascinating, then I feel sorry for you, and recommend you avoid it, as you really need to be interested to get the most out of it.

[Lu · Rating 2 out of 5]

Spodziewałam się czegoś więcej po autorze, który jest w "temacie". Napisana jest 50/50 - nie jest to trudy język, nie powiedziałabym że jest to bardzo zgodne z "tyłem książeczki" (ale przypuszczam, że to przez możliwy błąd w tłumaczeniu xd i własnej kreatywnej interpretacji tłumacza - z czego też może wynikać kolejny problem!) a przede wszystkim trochę ujęcie tak ciekawego tematu w tak nie prosty, a chłopski sposób. Możemy się starać, żeby coś było bardziej przystępne ale nie zaniżajmy poziomu nauki.

[Juan Farfán · Rating 4 out of 5]

When we are kids we usually ask how big and what shape the world has because is natural to be curious about our home, our planet. What is strange, it is when we grow up few of us ask about our bigger home the universe, how big and what shape it has for example. This wonderful and short book answers this question and explains the mysteries we still are trying to unravel about our universe. It is great to scientists and non scientists alike. Great read to everyone still curious

[Sophie · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a great, quick read! It explained the basics of cosmology in a very digestible way, which I appreciated. As an astronomer, I knew a lot of the information already, but it was a great refresher and amazing to see everything tied together so concisely. I loved the last section where Page talks about the future of the field. It’s amazing that we can know so much and still have so many questions! I would recommend to anyone who wants to learn more about cosmology and the universe!

[Alejo.Tobon · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very complete book with the proper introduction to cosmology topics in just a few pages. Well written with a clear structure, it goes from the very basics to details on the CMB with a basis on data and measurements giving also the possible outcomes and some hints in current and future research topics.

[Tony Sullivan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A clear and helpful summary of the research.

OK, so: 1. what I think I get 2. what I don’t get 3. what no-one seems to get

We can see only part of the universe, albeit a whoppingly big part: the sphere of space in which light from stars has had time to reach us. This also includes background cosmic radiation from the Big Bang, and from this fact we deduce that the Bang happened 13.8 billion years ago. The fact that everything started from the Big Bang, and the homogeneity of the seen universe at large scales, both tell us that the unseen universe is basically the same as our local bit.

The “expansion” of the universe refers only to the growing distance between its component parts. It is not expanding into anything: leaving aside theories of the multiverse etc. there’s nothing external to the universe, not even space.

Just after the Big Bang, when the universe was of still of subatomic size, quantum fluctuations left its contents unevenly distributed, which in time allowed gravity to pull together galaxies etc.

Space itself is expanding between the galaxies, from which we conclude that space contains its own hidden energy. Since matter and energy are different versions of the same thing, the matter/energy of the vacuum can be measured against the matter/energy of radiation and of actual atomic matter. Here we find that space is increasingly “outweighing” the other two, through the neat trick of creating more of itself!

So the galaxies fly apart ever faster. But this space-creation does not apply where matter dominates, eg on Earth, even to the slightest degree. The Earth will never fly apart through this process.

Now comes the “flat universe”. The angles of a triangle on a flat surface equal 180 degrees; this is not the case on a bent surface: a sphere, say, or saddle-shape. Amazingly, this bit of schoolroom maths can be used to measure bits of the seen universe to show that, as with a flat surface, the universe never “bends”, ie a laser beam fired into space will never come back at you due a curve in the universe, however far the beam travels. In principle, the universe’s curvature may be too large scale for us to have detected it, but other tests also indicate a “flat” universe.

This in turn indicates that the universe extends forever. This endlessness was also present in the early universe, when eg the universe was the size of an orange (because that just meant that no part of this infinite content was further than the diameter of an orange from any other part of the infinite content).

Here I have trouble. If the universe is infinite in this sense – as an endless perpetuation of the finite – that means for example that its store of matter is infinite. But even the smallest subatomic particle has a size, however modest. An infinite number of them couldn't have fitted into the orange-sized cosmos just after the Big Bang. To put it another way, we are told the universe is "5%" matter - but that is 5% of an infinite amount if the universe extends endlessly with no qualitative change. There is an infinite amount of matter, radiation and space, but some parts are "more infinite" than others! I see this as an example of what Hegel called the bad infinity.

Setting all that aside: no one as yet really knows what space is, or time, or the physics of the universe before the universe began expanding. But they’re working on it.

[Pablo Lista · Rating 4 out of 5]

Está muy bien, pero no tanto como introducción, es recomendable haber leído algo sobre cosmología antes. Lo que sí que me ha gustado mucho es que incluye imágenes reales y las explica. También te hace seguir el proceso de pensamiento y de cálculo que siguen los cosmólogos para determinar cosas como la edad del universo, eso es probablemente lo mejor del libro.

[Colin Bischoff · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very nice introduction to modern cosmology. I appreciate the focus on the observations -- not just what we know but how we know it. The book is written in plain language, but that doesn't mean that it is an easy read. If you want to get the most out of this, be prepared to think about the graphs and the other quantitative arguments made throughout each chapter.

[Steve Gross · Rating 2 out of 5]

Despite the author's intent, this book is not easy reading. Sometimes it is clear, sometimes not. The biggest failing is that the author often refers to several color plates, which are small and hard to see.

[Janne Sinkkonen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Short, like my review. Concise except with clarifying analogues which you can skip. Up to date if you read it now. Does not speculate, acknowledges unknowns.The standard model of cosmology is indeed impressive! I'm eagerly waiting all the new findings of the forthcoming decades and centuries.

[Charles Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good overview of the state of cosmological research. Never too involved, even when the book goes into details. Even though this is a topic I've long been interested in, I still came away less ignorant.

The hardback version also has a very nice look and feel.