Kategoria BISAC: Science >> Physics - Gravity

Time. Gravity. Night. So much of what surrounds us feels familiar and mundane. But each is a wonder that reveals profound insights into the world around us.

C. Renee James's whimsical tour of seven everyday experiences--night, light, stuff, gravity, time, home, and wonder--opens the Universe to fantastical contemplation. Light? Although we need it to see, there's much more to it than meets the eye. Stuff? When it comes down to it, things are almost entirely empty space--99.9% nothing--especially when you get to the atomic level. Home? James's contemplation of our place in the...

This volume reviews the current status with respect to both theory and observation of the extragalactic distance scale. A sufficient accuracy is required both for a precise determination of the cosmological parameters and also in order to achieve a better understanding of physical processes in extragalactic systems. The "standard candles," used to set up the extragalactic distance scale, reviewed in this book include cepheid variables, RR Lyrae variables, novae, Type Ia and Type II supernovae as well as globular clusters and planetary nebulae.

The formation of galaxies is one of the greatest puzzles in astronomy, the solution is shrouded in the depths of space and time, but has profound implications for the universe we observe today. This book discusses the beginnings of the process from cosmological observations and calculations. It examines the different theories of galaxy formation and shows where each theory either succeeds or fails in explaining what we actually observe. In addition, the book looks ahead to what we may expect to uncover about the epoch of galaxy formation from the new and upcoming generations of telescopes...

The birth and evolution of our universe is the greatest enigma to mankind. Remarkably, it is our generation that is able to trace the evolution of the universe as a whole from its very beginning to its far future. The authors discuss possible ways to solve cosmic problems and puzzles, such as the inflationary mechanism of black hole formation, the ways to detect large scale antimatter regions and realistic mechanisms of their origin. Additional resources on inflationary scenarios, like concrete realization of the anthropic principle origin of the cosmological constant, and phase...

Nature is characterized by a number of physical laws and fundamental dimensionless couplings. These determine the properties of our physical universe, from the size of atoms, cells and mountains to the ultimate fate of the universe as a whole. Yet it is rather remarkable how little we know about them. The constancy of physical laws is one of the cornerstones of the scientific research method, but for fundamental couplings this is an assumption with no other justification than a historical assumption. There is no 'theory of constants' describing their role in the underlying theories and how...