Cosmology for the Curious

Part I The Big Bang and the Observable Universe: A historical overview.- Newton's universe.- Special relativity.- The fabric of space and time.- An expanding universe.- Observational cosmology.- Hubble's law and the expanding universe.- The fate of the universe.- Dark matter and dark energy.- The quantum world.- The hot big bang.- Structure formation.- Element abundances.- The very early universe.- Part II Beyond the Big Bang: Problems with the big bang.- The theory of cosmic inflation.- Testing inflation: predictions and observations.- Eternal inflation.- String theory and the multiverse.- Anthropic selection.- The principle of mediocrity.- Did the universe have a beginning?.- Creation of universes from nothing.- The big picture.- Appendix.   

DELIA PERLOV's research interests are focused on the eternally inflating multiverse, and touch on various aspects of cosmology, string theory, quantum field theory and general relativity. She got her Ph.D. from Tufts University and then spent several years working as a postdoctoral fellow, also at Tufts, where she now lectures on a part-time basis.
ALEX VILENKIN has been one of the key researchers at the forefront of theoretical cosmology and has made many significant contributions to the field. He is best known for his theories of eternal cosmic inflation, creation of the universe from nothing, and for his groundbreaking work on cosmic strings. He is the director of the Tufts Institute of Cosmology.

"As astounding as the quality of the science is that the publishers have given us as much colour as needed and as many equations (mostly in the appendices for the calculus-minded) for the price of a good dinner (without wine). I paid for my copy (at a Springer-editor & author's reduced price) and will use it if my department ever lets me teach one of those fun 'Cosmology for Poets' courses again." (Virginia Trimble, The Observatory, Vol. 138 (1267), December, 2018)

"It brings you up to the current state of the art of cosmology, it is educational and you even more appreciate the work of the genius scientists laying the foundations to solve the riddle of humankind ... . a "must" have for the curious. The mathematical appendix and the index are flawless." (Joachim J. Kehr, Journal of Space Operations & Communicator, Vol. 15 (1), 2018)

"Cosmology for the Curious offers an excellent tour of the key ideas in cosmology. It also crisply delineates our empirically determined understanding from more speculative areas of current research. I am currently using it in my introductory cosmology class." (Priyamvada Natarajan, Physics Today, April, 2018)

"This is an introductory textbook, intended for first year physics students, with familiar textbook features like questions to answer at the end of each chapter. ... The ideal market for this book is ... a student about to start on a physics course at university who wants to make it more comfortable to ease into the course. Delia Perlov and Alex Vilenkin should be congratulated on making a big step towards accessibility in a book like this." (Popular Science, popsciencebooks.blogspot.de, October, 2017)