The Oxford Handbook of the History of Modern Cosmology

We live in a rapidly expanding universe originating some 14 billion years ago. How did astronomers and physicists arrive at this stunning picture of the universe as a whole? The Oxford Handbook of the History of Modern Cosmology offers a comprehensive and authoritative answer in 13 chapters. It describes in detail discoveries such as the expansion of the universe, the Big Bang theory and the cosmic background radiation. But history is more than a string of successes. The book also pays attention to the many erroneous ideas of the past, from Einstein’s static universe to Fred Hoyle’s belief in a steady state universe with no beginning in time. Moreover, it includes sections on some of the modern and still controversial theories, such as the idea of many universes known as the multiverse hypothesis.