Preface
Acknowledgements
Author biography
1 Thescientific method
1.1 Introduction to thescientific method
1.2some mathematics
2 Early astronomy
3 Nebulae
4 Cosmic distances
4.1 The cosmic distance ladder
4.1.1 The parallax view
4.1.2 The color ofstarlight
4.1.3 The Cepheid variables
4.1.4 Thesupernovascale
4.2spiral nebulae:are they extragalactic?
4.3 The chemical composition ofstars
5space-time
5.1 Thespeed of light
5.2 Thespe theory of relativity
5.3 The general theory of relativity
5.4 Universal expansion
6 The Big Bang
6.1 Thestructure and history of the Universe
6.2 The geometry ofspace-time
6.3 The father of the Big Bang
6.4 The creation of the elements
7 Cosmic microwave background radiation
7.1 The 'smoking gun'of the Big Bang
7.2 Decoupling
7.3 How bright is the CMB?
7.4 ‘Matter dominated' versus ‘radiation dominated' Universes
7.5 How uniform is the CMB?
8 Dark matter
8.1 Dark matter defined
8.2 Non-baryonic dark matter
9 Thestandard model of cosmology
9.1 Nucleosynthesis
9.1.1 The first frame (t=10-2s)
9.1.2 Thesecond frame (t=10-1s)
9.1.3 The third frame (t=1s)
9.1.4 The fourth frame (t=10s)
9.1.5 The fifth frame (t=100s)
9.1.6 Later frames
9.2 The birth and death ofstars
9.3 Thesize of the Universe
10 The very early Big Bang
10.1 The four forces of nature
10.2 The quantum nature of forces
10.3 The unification of forces
10.4 The quark model
10.5 The leptons
10.6 The gluons
10.7 Thestandard model of high-energy physics
10.8 The history of the Universe: the early frames
10.9 Why matter rather than antimatter?
11 Inflation
11.1 The horizon problem
11.2 The flatness problem
11.3 Thesmoothness problem
11.4 The magnetic monopole problem
11.5 Inflation
11.6 How inflationsolves the Big Bang problems
12 Dark energy
12.1 The curvature ofspace-time
12.2 The accelerating universal expansion
12.3 Dark energy and the CMB
12.4 Is there asignature of inflation in the CMB?
13 Higher dimensions
13.1 Field theories
13.2 Kaluza-Klein theory
13.3 Compactification
13.4 QED
13.5 Quantization of the weak andstrong forces
13.6 Early attempts at a quantum theory of gravity
14string theory
14.1 Particles and ‘string'
14.2 M-theory
14.3 The multiverse
15 Black holes and wormholes
15.1 The life of thesun
15.2 The life of massivestars
15.3 Neutronstars
15.4 Black holes
15.5some properties of black holes
15.6 The thermodynamics of black holes
15.7 Hawking radiation
15.8 Thesingularity at the center of a black hole
16 Reading list
17 Links to astronomy websites
编辑手记