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

(Paperback)

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The first-hand account of the paradigm-breaking discovery of the origins of the universe - 'mind-blowing stuff' Sunday Times 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.

Reviews

"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

Author Bio

Alan Guth, after receiving his doctorate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, held positions at Princeton University, Columbia, Cornell and the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. He is now the V. F. Weisskopf Professor of Physics at MIT. He has been elected to the US National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and has been awarded the Eddington Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in London.