The speed of the expansion of the universe is governed by the Hubble constant. Discordance tells of its troubled 100-year history, from tentative steps to measure the distances of nearby stars to orbiting telescopes peering into the far reaches of space. But recent results hint at more trouble ahead: the 'Hubble tension'. The story is not over yet.
Arvustused
This is an exciting romp through the Universe in pursuit of its important and elusive measurement. Highly recommended. * Adam Riess, Nobel laureate 2011, Bloomberg Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins University and the Space Telescope Science Institute * Navigates its way smoothly between the various rivalries ... providing a crystal-clear assessment of the challenges of the past and the future prospects for concordance of the Hubble parameter. * Joseph Silk, Emeritus Fellow of New College, Oxford, formerly Savilian Chair of Astronomy at the University of Oxford's Department of Physics *
Preface
Prologue: Starry Messengers
1: Miss Leavitt's Law
2: The Scale of the Universe
3: Hubble's Constant
4: Divine Curves of Creation
5: Parameters of the Universe
6: Hubble Wars
7: The Inflationary Universe
8: Dark Energy and the Accelerating Universe
9: Concordance
10: The Hubble Tension
Epilogue: Discordance
Appendix 1: Symbols and Acronyms
Appendix 2: Cosmic Distances
Appendix 3: Redshifts and 'Look-back' Times
Acknowledgements
Endnotes
Bibliography
Jim Baggott is an award-winning science writer. Trained as a scientist in the Universities of Oxford and Stanford, and a former lecturer at the University of Reading, he has written popular books on science, philosophy, and history. His books include Higgs (2012), Mass (2017), for which he won the 2020 Premio Cosmos prize, Quantum Reality (2020), Quantum Space (2018), and, with the late John L. Heilbron, Quantum Drama (2024). His books have been translated into a dozen different languages, and he has won awards both for his scientific research and his science writing.
