"The ultimate validation of the big-bang theory makes for a fascinating
book. Kragh [tells] the story in comprehesive and compelling
detail".--Jack Zirker, National Optical Astronomy ObservatoriesFor over
three millennia, most people could understand the universe only in terms
of myth, religion, and philosophy. Between 1920 and 1970, cosmology
transformed into a branch of physics. With this remarkably rapid change
came a theory that would finally lend empirical support to many
long-held beliefs about the origins and development of the entire
universe: the theory of the big bang. In this book, Helge Kragh presents
the development of scientific cosmology for the first time as a
historical event, one that embroiled many famous scientists in a
controversy over the very notion of an evolving universe with a
beginning in time. In rich detail he examines how the big-bang theory
drew inspiration from and eventually triumphed over rival views, mainly
the steady-state theory and its concept of a stationary universe of
infinite age.In the 1920s, Alexander Friedmann and Georges Lema