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Title: An Introduction to Modern Cosmology by Andrew Liddle ISBN: 0-470-84835-9 Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Pub. Date: 09 May, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.75 (4 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Best elementary Book on Cosmology.
Comment: This is the clearest book on Cosmology available. It is also the most up-to-date. Some math is used, so it is not a book for absolutely everyone. I would say it is for beginning undergraduates, but more advanced readers will get more from the "Advanced Topic" sections. Many problems are included. The advanced readers will have to solve them all, to really get all the book has to offer.
The price per page is high, compared to the Cambridge and Princeton paperbacks.
Rating: 5
Summary: An excellent introduction
Comment: I came across this book because it was required reading for my cosmology course. The book gives a Newtonian (it only briefly mentions the much more complicated General Relativity equations) overview of the current theories about the universe: its mass, its age, its shape and its ultimate destiny. The text is very readable, equations are explained properly and the diagrams are useful. The reader is left with a good impression of why the currently proposed cosmological models are sensible.
The book puts the case for the hot big bang model, which is by far the most popular cosmological model at this time. There is a chapter on the successes of this model: explanation of the cosmic background radiation, universal expansion, and the relative abundance of elements in the early universe. There follows a chapter on the major problems of this model: how come the background radiation looks the same (to within one part in a hundred thousand) everywhere, even when light hasn't had time to travel between all these regions? How did the universe become structured (into things such as stars) when physics predicts that matter should be homogeneously spread? And why does the universe (seemingly) possess the exact right density (to almost infinitessimal precision) to stay flat, as we see it today? Inflation theory offers some help, but at the same time asks a bigger question: which of the many inflation theories (if any) is right? Liddle doesn't go into much detail on this point, but you get a good introduction into what inflation is and why such an odd theory would be proposed.
I'm making it sound as if the big bang model has more problems than it solves, which I don't think it does (heck, it's the best theory we've got). But the problems are more interesting!
On which subject, there are problems (solvable ones!) at the end of each chapter, with brief solutions at the end of the book.
Rating: 4
Summary: clear as crystal
Comment: This book is the most clearly written book I have ever read. Liddle has a knack for making difficult concepts easy to comprehend through his use of analogies and vividly accurate descriptions. The cosmological ideas are explained at an intuitive level and have been imprinted on my mind forever. This book is a great introduction for the less mathematically minded though also a great source of information for others. This book book covers a great amount of cosmology the big bang, nucloesynthesis, inflation, cosmological models etc and is set out in a very logical order. I would thoroughly recommend this as an introduction although for those interested in more mathematical rigour other text books may be necessary.
Well done Dr. Liddle ! A great achievement .............
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Title: Modern Cosmology by Scott Dodelson ISBN: 0122191412 Publisher: Academic Press Pub. Date: 07 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $70.00 |
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Title: Introduction to Cosmology by Barbara Ryden ISBN: 0805389121 Publisher: Pearson Addison Wesley Pub. Date: 08 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $57.00 |
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Title: Quantum Field Theory in a Nutshell by A. Zee ISBN: 0691010196 Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr Pub. Date: 10 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $49.50 |
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Title: The Fabric of the Cosmos : Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality by Brian Greene ISBN: 0375412883 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 10 February, 2004 List Price(USD): $28.95 |
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Title: Facts and Mysteries in Elementary Particle Physics by Martinus J. G. Veltman, M. G. Veltman ISBN: 981238149X Publisher: World Scientific Pub Co Pub. Date: February, 2003 List Price(USD): $19.00 |
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