Table of Contents

1: Introduction
2: Perspectives
3: Principles
4: Our neighbourhood
5: The universe of galaxies
6: The invisible cosmos
7: Supermassive black holes and the birth of galaxies
8: Clusters and clustering
9: Space is nearly flat
10: Dark energy and the runaway universe
11: The panacea of cold dark matter
12: Origins
13: The seeds of structure
14: Beyond the beginning
15: Towards the infinite universe
16: From time to time machines
17: A brief moment in time
18: Into the infinite future
19: And so to God
20: Where next?
Index

About the Author

Joseph Silk is Savilian Professor of Astronomy at the University of Oxford. He has published a number of books on cosmology for the general reader, including The Big Bang (W. H. Freeman), The Left Hand of Creation (with J. D. Barrow, published by Oxford University Press), and On the Shores of the Unknown (Cambridge University Press).

Reviews

`Review from previous edition This book packs so much into a decidedly finite space. Silk covers everything you might hope to find in a book by one of the world's leading cosmologists, and much more besides... Accessible and informative.'
Peter Coles, Nature
`This is an outstanding work, suited to readers of all ages and all backgrounds, and is recommended without the slightest hesitation.'
Patrick Moore, THES