Finding the Big Bang

by Edited by P. James E. Peebles , Lyman A. Page, Jr. , R. Bruce Partridge

• ISBN13: 9780521519823
• ISBN10: 0521519829
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-04-27
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Cosmology, the study of the universe as a whole, has become a precise physical science, the foundation of which is our understanding of the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR) left from the big bang. The story of the discovery and exploration of the CMBR in the 1960s is recalled for the first time in this collection of 44 essays by eminent scientists who pioneered the work. Two introductory chapters put the essays in context, explaining the general ideas behind the expanding universe and fossil remnants from the early stages of the expanding universe. The last chapter describes how the confusion of ideas and measurements in the 1960s grew into the present tight network of tests that demonstrate the accuracy of the big bang theory. This book is valuable to anyone interested in how science is done, and what it has taught us about the large-scale nature of the physical universe.

Author Biography

P. James E. Peebles is Albert Einstein Professor of Science Emeritus in the Department of Physics at Princeton University, New Jersey. Lyman A. Page, Jr. is Henry DeWolf Smyth Professor of Physics in the Department of Physics at Princeton University, New Jersey. R. Bruce Partridge is Marshall Professor of Natural Sciences at Haverford College, Pennsylvania.

Table of Contents

Preface page	p. xi
List of contributors	p. xiv
Introduction	p. 1
A guide to modern cosmology	p. 9
The expanding universe	p. 10
The thermal cosmic microwave background radiation	p. 16
What is the universe made of?	p. 18
Origins of the cosmology of the 1960s	p. 23
Nucleosynthesis in a hot big bang	p. 23
Nucleosynthesis in alternative cosmologies	p. 34
Thermal radiation from a bouncing universe	p. 40
Interstellar molecules and the sea of microwave radiation	p. 42
Direct detection of the microwave radiation	p. 44
Cosmology in the early 1960s	p. 51
The steady state cosmology and the cosmological tests	p. 53
Light elements from the big bang	p. 58
Radiation from the big bang	p. 60
Galaxy formation	p. 66
The situation in the early 1960s	p. 67
Recollections of the 1960s	p. 69
Precursor evidence from communications experiments	p. 70
Early low-noise and related studies at Bell Laboratories, Holmdel, NJ	p. 70
Precursor evidence from interstellar molecules	p. 74
Conversations with Dicke	p. 74
Cyanogen and the CMBR	p. 75
Measuring the cosmic microwave background with interstellar molecules	p. 78
Precursor evidence from element abundances	p. 86
The helium content of the universe	p. 86
The path to the hot big bang in the Soviet Union	p. 92
Unforgettable Yakov Zel'dovich	p. 92
Cosmology in the Soviet Union in the 1960s	p. 99
Cosmology in the 1960s	p. 107
When we were young ...	p. 108
Moscow 1968-1969	p. 132
Detection at Bell Laboratories	p. 144
Encountering cosmology	p. 144
Two astronomical discoveries	p. 157
The Bell Laboratories-Princeton connection	p. 176
Radio astronomy from first contacts to the CMBR	p. 176
Spreading the word - or how the news went from Princeton to Holmdel	p. 184
Developments at Princeton	p. 185
How I learned physical cosmology	p. 185
Measuring the cosmic microwave background radiation	p. 200
Recollections of the second measurement of the CMBR at Princeton University in 1965	p. 213
Early days of the primeval fireball	p. 221
Developments at Cambridge	p. 238
Cambridge cosmology in the 1960s	p. 238
The day Fred Hoyle thought he had disproved the big bang theory	p. 244
An initial impact of the CMBR on nucleosynthesis in big and little bangs	p. 258
Cosmology and relativistic astrophysics in Cambridge	p. 261
Critical reactions to the hot big bang interpretation	p. 267
Some comments on the early history of the CMBR	p. 267
My reaction to the discovery of the CMBR	p. 275
Not the correct explanation for the CMBR	p. 279
Measuring the CMBR energy spectrum	p. 280
The CMB - how to observe and not see	p. 280
Early CMBR observations at the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory	p. 288
Experiments with the CMBR	p. 293
Investigation of the background radiation in the early years of its discovery	p. 296
Testing the fireball hypothesis	p. 302
Early spectral measurements of the cosmic microwave background radiation	p. 323
An attempt at detecting the cosmic background radiation in the early 1960s	p. 329
Being a young graduate student in interesting times - Ignoring the forest for the trees	p. 339
The big bang, brighter than a thousand suns	p. 340
CMBR research at MIT shortly after the discovery - is there a blackbody peak?	p. 342
Structure in the distributions of matter and radiation	p. 361
Clusters and superclusters of galaxies	p. 361
The synergy of mathematics and physics	p. 364
CMBR reminiscences	p. 368
A journey through time	p. 371
The cosmic background radiation and the initial singularity	p. 379
Measuring the CMBR anisotropy	p. 385
Early cosmic background studies at Stanford Radio Astronomy Institute	p. 385
The early days of the CMBR - An undergraduate's perspective	p. 393
Going the "easy" direction - and finding a lot of the wrong thing	p. 397
Driven to drink - pursuit of the cosmic microwave background radiation	p. 401
Cosmology and the CMBR since the 1960s	p. 408
The CMBR energy spectrum	p. 412
The aether drift	p. 424
The CMBR intrinsic anisotropy spectrum	p. 434
Theoretical concepts	p. 434
Advances in the anisotropy measurements and analysis	p. 447
The cosmological tests	p. 465
Lessons	p. 475
Appendix	p. 478
Glossary	p. 510
References	p. 531
Index	p. 561
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