Kooperativer Bibliotheksverbund

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Format: XIV, 262 p. , online resource.

Edition: 1st ed. 1987.

ISBN: 9783642955082

Content: Although this book has been available for some time, it is only now appearing in an English edition. This gives me the opportunity of adding a few explanations. I have not struggled to include the very latest, tentative results. I have, instead, concentrated on presenting cosmological ideas to interested non­ experts. They often encounter considerable difficulties when attempts are made to explain even long-established results in this field, so the aim of this book is to provide them with help. Naturally, I have also tried to include modern findings. To help with the explanation I have made use of the fictitious inhabi­ tants of Flatland, occasional historical digressions, and the dreams of Herr Meyer. Incidentally, I chose this name, which is very common in German­ speaking countries, to suggest an average citizen, just like the man next door. I should like to thank Springer-Verlag for deciding to publish this book in the language in which many of the discoveries described here were first formulated. I also thank my translator, Mr Storm Dunlop. Finally I thank Hanna Tettenborn for compiling the index.

Note: 1. Anatomy of the Milky Way -- Cosmic Yardsticks -- Herr Meyer Solves a Riddle -- Approaching the Milky Way -- In the Virgo Cluster -- The Stars of the Milky Way Make Their Appearance -- Inside the Milky Way -- The Centre of the Milky Way -- 2. Light -- Waves in Empty Space -- Herr Meyer Dreams About the Electromagnetic Spectrum -- The Spectrum -- How the Spectral Lines Are Formed -- Hydrogen as a Radio Transmitter -- Thermal Radiation -- Spectra from the Depths of Space -- A Millionth of a Gramme of Light -- Radiation into Matter; Matter into Radiation -- Energy in Light and Matter -- 3. Speeding Up the Milky Way -- Novae and Supernovae -- The Rotating Disk -- Two Populations -- Motion Revealed by Light and Radio Waves -- Herr Meyer and His Bicycle -- The Doppler Effect -- The Pattern of Movement Within the Milky Way -- 4. Plumbing the Depths of the Milky Way -- Stellar Proper Motions -- Radial Velocities -- Star Streams -- The Hyades Cluster -- Beyond the Hyades Farther Out into Space -- Pulsating Stars and the Cosmic Distance Scale -- How Far Away Are the Globular Clusters? -- Harlow Shapley Ousts Us from the Galactic Centre -- The Hyades Stars Determine the Size of the Universe -- 5. The Island Universe Debate -- The Problem of the Nebulae -- Stars Erupt in the Nebulae -- "Secondary Nuclei" Within the Andromeda Nebula -- The 26th of April 1920 -- Walter Baade Increases the Distance of the Andromeda Nebula -- 6. The Universe Is Expanding -- The High Velocities of the Spiral Nebulae -- Are We in the Centre of the Universe? -- Expansion and Olbers' Paradox -- When Did It Begin? -- Galaxies That Are Approaching -- Doubts About the Expansion -- What Lies Farther Out? -- 7. The Big Bang in Flatland -- Herr Meyer's Dream of Flatland -- The World of the Flatmen -- A Two-Dimensional World's Astronomy -- Geometry in Flatland -- True Curved Surfaces -- Is Our Three-Dimensional Space Curved? -- Ghosts from the Fourth Dimension -- 8. Expansion and Gravity -- It Is the Same Everywhere in the Universe as It Is Here -- Which Curved Universe Do We Inhabit? -- The Expansion Slows Down -- Expanding Flat Universes -- From Flatland to Our Universe -- Gravitational Repulsion? -- Which Came First, the Chicken or the Egg? -- The Russian Balloonist and Einstein's Mistakes -- The Theory of the Steady-State Universe -- 9. The Realm of the Nebulae -- Galaxies Rotate -- The Invisible Material -- The Zoo of Galaxies -- Galactic Nuclei -- Seyfert Galaxies -- Clusters of Galaxies -- Cannibalism Among Galaxies -- Clusters of Clusters -- 10. The Radio Sky -- The Birth of Radio Astronomy -- Radio Waves from the Milky Way -- The Story of Cygnus A -- Radio Galaxies -- The Twin Exhaust Model -- "Tadpole" Galaxies and Aperture Synthesis -- 11. The Mysterious Quasars -- The Classification of Radio Sources -- Stars That Are Utterly Unlike Anything Ever Seen Before -- The Recession Velocities of Radio Stars -- Are Quasars Really Distant? -- Black Holes in Quasars? -- The Absorption Lines in Quasars -- The Problem of Superluminal Velocities -- Herr Meyer and the Firework Display -- A Counter-Example -- Are There Quasars in the Centres of Galaxies? -- The Double Quasar -- 12. ... and There Was Light -- Radio Emission from Our Bodies -- Searching for Faint Radiation from the Milky Way -- The Radiation Remaining from the Big Bang -- Cold Radiation from the Hot Big Bang -- Our Slipstream in Space -- The Cosmic Mixture of Matter and Radiation -- Cosmic Material in the Laboratory -- When Radiation and Matter Separated -- Radiation Becomes Dominant -- Where Is the Antimatter? -- The First Chemical Elements -- Are Neutrinos Sufficient to Close the Universe? -- Our Universe's Luminous Boundary -- Olbers' Paradox, for the Last Time -- 13. The Intelligent Universe -- Where Did Galaxies and Quasars Come from? -- Why Is the Universe so Smooth? -- We Are Here Because the Universe Is Uniform -- What Came Before? -- At the Origin of Time -- When the Universe Was Tossed into Physics -- Do Natural Laws Determine the Form of the Universe? -- A Time-Lapse Film of the Universe -- Appendices -- A. Frequency and Wavelength -- B. How the Distance of the Hyades Is Determined -- C. The Space Telescope and Stellar Parallaxes -- D. Distances by Dead Reckoning -- Author and Subject Index.

In: Springer Nature eBook

Additional Edition: Printed edition: ISBN 9783540171195

Additional Edition: Printed edition: ISBN 9783642955099

Language: English

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-95508-2

URL: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-95508-2