The Extravagant Universe: Exploding Stars, Dark Energy, and the Accelerating Cosmos (Princeton Science Library) - Hardcover

Kirshner, Robert P.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0691058628 ISBN 13: 9780691058627

Publisher: Princeton University Press, 2002

Synopsis

The Extravagant Universe tells the story of a remarkable adventure of scientific discovery. One of the world's leading astronomers, Robert Kirshner, takes readers inside a lively research team on the quest that led them to an extraordinary cosmological discovery: the expansion of the universe is accelerating under the influence of a dark energy that makes space itself expand. In addition to sharing the story of this exciting discovery, Kirshner also brings the science up-to-date in a new epilogue. He explains how the idea of an accelerating universe--once a daring interpretation of sketchy data--is now the standard assumption in cosmology today.


This measurement of dark energy--a quality of space itself that causes cosmic acceleration--points to a gaping hole in our understanding of fundamental physics. In 1917, Einstein proposed the "cosmological constant" to explain a static universe. When observations proved that the universe was expanding, he cast this early form of dark energy aside. But recent observations described first-hand in this book show that the cosmological constant--or something just like it--dominates the universe's mass and energy budget and determines its fate and shape.


Warned by Einstein's blunder, and contradicted by the initial results of a competing research team, Kirshner and his colleagues were reluctant to accept their own result. But, convinced by evidence built on their hard-earned understanding of exploding stars, they announced their conclusion that the universe is accelerating in February 1998. Other lines of inquiry and parallel supernova research now support a new synthesis of a cosmos dominated by dark energy but also containing several forms of dark matter. We live in an extravagant universe with a surprising number of essential ingredients: the real universe we measure is not the simplest one we could imagine.

About this title

About the Author

Robert P. Kirshner is the Clowes Professor of Science at Harvard University.

From the Back Cover

'"This book describes a remarkable era in cosmology. Over the last three years several lines of evidence have gelled into a consistent but--to most of us--unexpected picture of what our universe consists of and how it is expanding. Told by a key participant, the story will be enjoyed by anyone with an interest in astronomy or cosmology, or even merely a general curiosity about science."--Martin Rees, author ofOur Cosmic Habitat

"This is a wonderful book on one of the hottest topics in science, written by one of the main contributors to the breakthrough. It presents a history of modern cosmology written in a very lively style with amusing personal stories that make the reading easy and entertaining."--Bohdan Paczynski, Princeton University

From the Inside Flap

'"This book describes a remarkable era in cosmology. Over the last three years several lines of evidence have gelled into a consistent but--to most of us--unexpected picture of what our universe consists of and how it is expanding. Told by a key participant, the story will be enjoyed by anyone with an interest in astronomy or cosmology, or even merely a general curiosity about science."--Martin Rees, author ofOur Cosmic Habitat

"This is a wonderful book on one of the hottest topics in science, written by one of the main contributors to the breakthrough. It presents a history of modern cosmology written in a very lively style with amusing personal stories that make the reading easy and entertaining."--Bohdan Paczynski, Princeton University

Reviews

Astronomer Kirshner, the Clowes Professor of Science at Harvard University and head of the optical and infrared division at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, is part of a team studying supernovae that, by their apparent brightness, make it possible to measure distances in the universe. "The observations of distant supernovae show that we live in a universe that is not static as Einstein thought, and not just expanding as Hubble showed, but accelerating! We attribute this increase in expansion over time to a dark energy with an outward-pushing pressure.... Dark energy makes up the missing component of mass-energy that theorists have sought, reconciles the ages of objects with the present expansion rate of the universe, and complements new measurements of the lingering glow of the Big Bang itself to make a neat and surprising picture for the contents of the universe." It is an extravagant universe: "It has neutrinos as hot dark matter; something unknown as cold dark matter; inflation in the first 10-35 second after the Big Bang; and acceleration by dark energy now." Kirshner makes the story sing and the concepts of astronomy vivid.

Editors of Scientific American

Edition details

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0691058628
• ISBN 13: 9780691058627
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 296