Discovering the Expanding Universe

, by Harry Nussbaumer , Lydia Bieri , Foreword by Allan Sandage

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ISBN: 9780521514842 | 0521514843
Cover: Hardcover
Copyright: 4/27/2009

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The discovery of the expanding universe is one of the most exciting exploits in astronomy. This book explores its history, from the beginnings of modern cosmology with Einstein in 1917, through Lematre's discovery of the expanding universe in 1927 and his suggestion of a Big Bang origin, to Hubble's contribution of 1929 and the subsequent years when Hubble and Humason provided the essential observations for further developing modern cosmology, and finally to Einstein's conversion to the expanding universe in 1931. As a prelude the book traces the evolution of some of the notions of modern cosmology from the late Middle Ages up to the final acceptance of the concept of galaxies in 1925. Written in non-technical language, with a mathematical appendix, the book will appeal to scientists, students, and anyone interested in the history of astronomy and cosmology.

Acknowledgements	p. ix
Foreword	p. xi
Introduction	p. 1
Cosmological concepts at the end of the Middle Ages	p. 5
The spherically closed universe of antiquity and the Middle Ages	p. 6
Cusanus and his universe without centre or boundary	p. 10
A warning by the Church	p. 13
Copernicus and the question of an infinite universe	p. 14
Thomas Digges: How far do stars extend?	p. 15
A crucial step in observational techniques	p. 16
Kepler's finite universe and Galileo's telescope	p. 17
Descartes: An evolving universe	p. 21
Newton's Principia and Bentley's sermon	p. 24
Nebulae as a new astronomical phenomenon	p. 27
Early reports on nebulae	p. 27
Edmond Halley on several nebulae or lucid spots like clouds	p. 29
The universes of Wright, Kant and Laplace	p. 31
On the construction of the heavens	p. 35
Herschel confirms and then rejects island universes	p. 35
The Leviathan of William Parsons, the Earl of Rosse	p. 40
Huggins applies spectroscopy on nebulae	p. 42
On the spectrum of the great nebula in Andromeda	p. 45
Island universes turn into astronomical facts: A universe of galaxies	p. 46
Kapteyn's Galaxy	p. 47
Shapley's Changing view of the Milky Way	p. 48
Slipher favours island universes	p. 56
Curtis and his novae	p. 57
Was there a villain in the game?	p. 58
The Great Debate	p. 59
Öpik finds the distance to Andromeda	p. 60
Hubble cuts the Gordian knot	p. 60
The early cosmology of Einstein and de Sitter	p. 63
Some fundamental relations	p. 65
The static universe of Einstein	p. 72
The static universe of de Sitter	p. 76
De Sitter's Trojan horse	p. 77
No energy conservation in relativistic cosmology!	p. 85
Schwarzschild's vision of curved space	p. 87
The dynamical universe of Friedmann	p. 88
An alternative to Einstein and de Sitter	p. 89
Einstein's rejection	p. 92
Redshifts: How to reconcile Slipher and de Sitter?	p. 93
Redshifts	p. 93
Distances	p. 95
Early interpretation of redshifts	p. 96
Lemaître discovers the expanding universe	p. 99
Lemaître, a student of Eddington and research fellow in Shapley's group	p. 99
Doubts about de Sitter's choice of coordinates	p. 101
The discovery of the expanding universe	p. 103
The derivation of the linear velocity-distance relationship	p. 106
Lemaître determines the 'Hubble constant' from observations	p. 108
Lemaître's Interpretation of theory and observations	p. 109
Lemaître's debt to Friedmann	p. 110
Einstein judges Lemaître's interpretation as 'abominable'	p. 111
Hubble's contribution of 1929	p. 114
Hubble finds the linear velocity-distance relationship from observations	p. 115
Hubble's interpretation of the velocity-distance relationship	p. 117
What was Hubble's motive for his 1929 investigation?	p. 117
The reception of Hubble's discovery	p. 118
Hubble and the expansion of the Universe	p. 119
The breakthrough for the expanding universe	p. 121
The Friday, 10 January 1930 meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society	p. 121
Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington	p. 124
The spreading of the gospel	p. 125
Hubble's anger about de Sitter	p. 129
De Sitter's check on Hubble	p. 129
Hubble's angry letter	p. 130
Hubble and Humason enlarge the sample	p. 134
Robertson and Tolman join the game	p. 137
Robertson starts from first principles	p. 137
Tolman and the annihilation of matter	p. 139
Weyl's brief return to cosmology	p. 142
The Einstein-de Sitter universe	p. 144
Einstein's conversion	p. 144
Einstein and de Sitter agree on the structure of the Universe	p. 149
Eddington's 'after dinner speech'	p. 152
Are the Sun and Earth older than the Universe?	p. 153
The age of the Universe deduced from the expansion rate	p. 153
The age of the Earth	p. 154
The age of the Sun and the stars	p. 154
Baade and Sandage drastically reduce the Hubble constant	p. 156
In search of alternative tracks	p. 157
Zwicky and the gravitational drag	p. 157
Milne's static Euclidean space	p. 158
The Steady State alternative	p. 161
The seed for the Big Bang	p. 164
Expansion out of Einstein's static state	p. 165
Expansion out of a primeval atom: The ancestor of the Big Bang	p. 166
A case for the cosmological constant	p. 168
Is there a beginning to the Universe?	p. 169
Is the Big Bang the origin, or a transition in a cyclic universe?	p. 170
Dark energy: Lemaître equates the cosmological constant $$ with Vacuum energy	p. 171
Summary and Postscript	p. 173
A brief recollection	p. 173
The birth of modern cosmology	p. 174
How different is today's cosmology	p. 177
A glass of port	p. 186
Mathematical Appendix	p. 188
Chapter 6: The early cosmology of Einstein and de Sitter	p. 188
Some fundamental relations	p. 188
The static universe of Einstein	p. 193
The static universe of de Sitter	p. 195
De Sitter's Trojan horse	p. 196
Chapter 7: The dynamical universe of Friedmann	p. 197
Chapter 9: Lemaître's discovery of the expanding universe	p. 198
Doubts about de Sitter's choice of coordinates	p. 198
The discovery of the expanding universe	p. 199
Chapter 13: Robertson and Tolman join the game	p. 201
Robertson starts from first principles	p. 201
Tolman and the annihilation of matter	p. 203
Chapter 14: The Einstein-de Sitter universe	p. 204
Today's presentation of fundamental cosmological relations	p. 205
Abbreviations	p. 209
References	p. 210
Index	p. 220
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

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Discovering the Expanding Universe

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