Big Bang: The Origin of the Universe

Big Bang is a very comprehensive summary of Physical Sciences, leading to Astronomy and eventually to Cosmology. This is by far the best book from Simon Singh. A well articulated story starting from Ancient Greeks to the modern Nobel prize winners. He describes in detail the Greeks assumptions of a round and spinning earth. And their measurements of Earth's circumference (Eratosthenes), relative sizes of moon and earth (Anaxagoras), and the distance to Sun (Aristarchus).Moving to the middle ages, the story of Tyco Brahe who took observational astronomy to an entirely new level of accuracy. Tyco's experimental data was interpreted correctly by Kepler who was myopic and suffered multiple visions from birth. Experiments of Galileo with pendulum, falling bodies, his observation of planets with the newly invented telescope and his ultimate friction with the Church. He mentions how Galileo could uniquely maintain religious beliefs and scientific dogmas in his mind at the same time, without any conflicts.On how Newton stood on the shoulders of the Giants and built on the planetary model to explain Gravity. William Herschel used telescope to discover the distant planets and their satellites. He came up with a rough size of the Milky Way Galaxy. His son John started recording the celestial pictures on newly invented medium-photography. With this technique, Astronomy entered a new phase.Beyond the Renaissance, how Einstein comes up with his thought experiments leading to theories of relativity (Special and General). For the first time I could understand that Special theory of relativity applied to bodies moving at constant speeds while General theory applied to accelerating or decelerating bodies. Time dilation and length contraction occur in fast moving bodies. How his theories lead to Alexander Friedman's prediction of an evolving Universe. How George Lemaitre's concluded that General theory of relativity implied a moment of creation, and hence Big Bang. And Einstein ended up denouncing both of them and came up with a Cosmological constant, which proves to be the biggest blunder of his life. George Lemaitre is a Belgian monk, who like Galielo, had a good balance between Science and Religion. Letting neither interfere with the other, but at the same time being deeply involved with both.John Goodricke discovered that the Cepheid stars have variable brightness. Because, unlike our Sun, they are not in a state of equilibrium. They go thru cycles of contraction and expansion. Henrietta Leavitt found a relationship between the period of fluctuation and apparent brightness by collecting data from a group of Cepheids in the Magellanic cloud. A team of astronomers found the distance to one Cepheid. Henrietta's theory was used to calculate distances of other Cepheids. Hale's efforts to build bigger and bigger telescopes. Edwin Hubble's greatest contribution by using these telescopes to prove that Andromeda is a separate Galaxy and that the Universe is undoubtedly expanding. Hubble's law vindicated George Lemaitre and Alexander Friedman.Ralph Alpher and George Gamow predicted that in the early Universe, after the Big Bang, matter existed as plasma, which cooled to 3000 degree centigrade and condensed to atoms, as the cosmic fog lifted, and Cosmic background radiation was emitted in all directions. This red shifted light in the microwave region was discovered by Penzias and Wilson of AT&T. Fred Hoyle, in spite of his adherence to the loosing Steady State theory, made a significant contribution to the explanation of the nucleosynthesis of heavy elements from dying stars.Final chapters on the COBE's (Cosmic Background Explorer) precise measurements of Cosmic background radiation and subtle temperature differences in radiation of early Universe, leading to creation of Stars and Galaxies. This was the climatic moment for the Big Bang theory.This book is a must read for anyone interested in Cosmology.

Big Bang is in essence a history of astronomy, or more precisely, cosmology, the study of the universe. Obviously, this is quite a large field of study, but one that Simon Singh accomplishes beautifully.Despite his education, Simon Singh can write, and write well. He can explain difficult, mind-bending concepts and vast measurements of scale better than probably anyone alive. And what do I mean by 'despite his education', for Simon Singh is really Simon Singh, Ph.D., with a degree in particle physics from Cambridge University, the school that gave us such scientists as Sir Isaac Newton, Stephen Hawking, Charles Darwin, James Clerk Maxwell, Rutherford, and Alan Turing. After working at CERN in Switzerland for a while after graduation, he decided to become an author, journalist, and TV producer, with the goal of bringing science to the everyday man (and woman). The problem is, of course, that most scientists cannot write, at least stuff that you and I can understand. Well, Dr. Singh can do that.The Big Bang traces the history of the theory of the Earth and the universe from the ancient Egyptians calculating, with remarkable accuracy, of the size of the Earth, to experiments requiring sophisticated satellites that must orbit the earth for years, making measurements that are impossible to make from earth, before useful data can be collected from them.Dr. Singh talks about how astronomers calculate the distance to planets, other stars, and even other galaxies. He talks about telescopes, compasses, and radio telescopes. He talks about gravity, spacetime, and relativity. He talks about measurements being taken that must be accurate to four or more decimal places to be useful.This really is a superb book, and very well written. I have just read it, but plan on reading it again within a few months, to help cement some of the knowledge into my brain.Highly recommended.