Cosmic Background Radiation

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Physical Environment > Cosmic Background Radiation

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A Brief History of Time

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Stephen W Hawking
1988

Before the Beginning : Cosmology Explained

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George Francis Rayner Ellis, Peter H. Collins
May 1993

Before the Beginning : Our Universe and Others

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Martin J. Rees
September 1997

Big Bang

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Heather Couper et al
June 1997
A Dorling Kindersley illustrated book for children (and adults)

Scientific American

Sound waves in the embryonic Universe

20 Apr 2000
Sound waves in the embryonic Universe are revealed for the first time in this image captured by the BOOMERANG balloon-borne telescope during its maiden voyage around the Antarctic. The patterns visible in the image are consistent with those that would result from sound waves racing through the early universe, creating the structures that by now have evolved into giant clusters and super-clusters of galaxies. The image records the intense heat that filled the universe just after the Big Bang, which is still present today as a faint glow of microwave radiation that fills the sky. The first evidence of structure in this Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) was found in 1991 by NASA's Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite, which mapped the entire sky with high sensitivity but coarse angular resolution (upper left). The BOOMERANG image covers approximately 2.5% of the sky with angular resolution 35 times that of COBE, revealing hundreds of complex structures that are visible as tiny variations -- typically only 100 millionths of a degree (0.0001 C) -- in the temperature of the CMB. Detailed analysis of this image will determine the geometry of the universe to high precision, and will shed light on the nature of the matter and energy that fill the Universe.

The First Three Minutes : A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe

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Steven Weinberg
1993

The Inflationary Universe : The Quest for a New Theory of Cosmic Origins

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Alan H. Guth, Alan P. Lightman
April 1997
The Inflationary Universe sheds light on a leading theory in humankind's continuing quest to understand the universe we live in.

The Life of the Cosmos

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Lee Smolin
April 1997
A theory of cosmic evolution by the natural selection of black-hole universes.

The Whole Shebang : A State-Of-The-Universe(S) Report

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Timothy Ferris
An account of the various mechanisms believed to have contributed to the universe as we now know it, from the Big Bang itself to inflation to superstrings.

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