Intelligible Universe: An Overview of the Last Thirteen Billion Years, Second Edition

This interesting book reviews WMAP s main results (2003) and discusses in detail how the accurate qualitative results for the age of the universe and the Hubble constant were anticipated in an article published five years before in Acta Cosmologica, Krakow. In the final chapter on Cosmic Numbers , it is shown that, as a result of the coincidence at decoupling time between atom formation and matter/radiation equality, a reasonable cosmic justification for the mass ratio of protons and electrons is obtained. **Contents:** The Intelligible Universe (Shanghai/Madrid 1993): Man and His Universe; The Importance of Precision; Relativistic Cosmology; Cosmology and Transcendence; The Cosmic Background Radiation (El Escorial 1993): The COBE Project, by John C Mather; COBE Observations of the Early Universe, by George F Smoot; The Last Thirteen Billion Years (Krakow, 1998/Madrid, 2002): Unexpected Coincidence Between Decoupling and Atom Formation Times; From the Big Bang to the Present; The Microwave Anisotropy Probe (Singapore/Madrid, 2005): The Report of the WMAP s First Year Observation in the NY Times: 02/12/2003; The Medieval Roots of Contemporary Science (Oviedo, 2007): Why Not in China?; Tomas Aquinas and Roger Bacon; The Wisdom of God Manifested in the Works of Creation; and other papers Ambitious in scope, to put it mildly, but gentle in approach, this explanation of the efforts to find the age of the universe includes a range of materials, including transcripts of lectures from 2006 Nobel Prize winners in physics John C. Mather and George F. Smoot. Gonzalo (U. Autonoma de Madrid) updates his text to include the most current research as he explains how man has perceived the universe, the importance of precision, the relations of masses/distances/time, relativistic cosmology, the fundamental physical forces in the universe, cosmology and transcendence. The lecture by Mather describes the COBE project in cosmic background radiation, and that of Smoot describes how the project is helping to determine conditions in the early stages of the universe. Other topics include the microwave anisotropy probe, cosmic numbers and the medieval roots of contemporary science. Annotation 2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

This interesting book reviews WMAP's main results (2003) and discusses in detail how the accurate qualitative results for the age of the universe and the Hubble constant were anticipated in an article published five years before in Acta Cosmologica, Krakow. In the final chapter on Cosmic Numbers, it is shown that, as a result of the coincidence at decoupling time between atom formation and matter/radiation equality, a reasonable cosmic justification for the mass ratio of protons and electrons is obtained.

This book includes the lectures of John C. Mather and George F. Smoot (2006 Physics Nobel Prize Winners) at El Escorial, 1993.

"This book reviews WMAP's main results (2003) and discusses in detail how the accurate qualitative results for the "age" of the universe and the Hubble constant were anticipated in an article published five years before in Acta Cosmologica, Krakow. In the final chapter on "Cosmic Numbers", it is shown that, as a result of the coincidence at decoupling time between atom formation and matter/radiation equality, a reasonable cosmic justification for the mass ratio of protons and electrons is obtained." "This book includes the lectures of John C. Mather and George F. Smoot (2006 Physics Nobel Prize Winners) at El Escorial, 1993"--Jacket