29.11: For Further Exploration
Articles
The January 2021 issue of Astronomy magazine is devoted to our modern understanding of the beginning and end of the universe.
Kruesi, L. “Cosmology: 5 Things You Need to Know.” Astronomy (May 2007): 28. Five questions students often ask, and how modern cosmologists answer them.
Kruesi, L. “How Planck Has Redefined the Universe.” Astronomy (October 2013): 28. Good review of what this space mission has told us about the CMB and the universe.
Lineweaver, C. & Davis, T. “Misconceptions about the Big Bang.” Scientific American (March 2005): 36. Some basic ideas about modern cosmology clarified, using general relativity.
Nadis, S. “Sizing Up Inflation.” Sky & Telescope (November 2005): 32. Nice review of the origin and modern variants on the inflationary idea.
Nadis, S. “How We Could See Another Universe.” Astronomy (June 2009): 24. On modern ideas about multiverses and how such bubbles of space-time might collide.
Nadis, S. “Dark Energy’s New Face: How Exploding Stars Are Changing our View.” Astronomy (July 2012): 45. About our improving understanding of the complexities of type Ia supernovae.
Naze, Y. “The Priest, the Universe, and the Big Bang.” Astronomy (November 2007): 40. On the life and work of Georges Lemaître.
Panek, R. “Going Over to the Dark Side.” Sky & Telescope (February 2009): 22. A history of the observations and theories about dark energy.
Pendrick, D. “Is the Big Bang in Trouble?” Astronomy (April 2009): 48. This sensationally titled article is really more of a quick review of how modern ideas and observations are fleshing out the Big Bang hypothesis (and raising questions.)
Reddy, F. “How the Universe Will End.” Astronomy (September 2014): 38. Brief discussion of local and general future scenarios.
Riess, A. and Turner, M. “The Expanding Universe: From Slowdown to Speedup.” Scientific American (September 2008): 62.
Turner, M. “The Origin of the Universe.” Scientific American (September 2009): 36. An introduction to modern cosmology.
Websites
Cosmology Primer: https://preposterousuniverse.com/cosmologyprimer/ . Caltech Astrophysicist Sean Carroll offers a non-technical site with brief overviews of many key topics in modern cosmology.
How Big Is the Universe?: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/space/how-big-universe.html . A clear essay by a noted astronomer Brent Tully summarizes some key ideas in cosmology and introduces the notion of the acceleration of the universe.
Universe 101: WMAP Mission Introduction to the Universe: http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/ . Concise NASA primer on cosmological ideas from the WMAP mission team.
Cosmic Times Project: cosmictimes.gsfc.nasa.gov/. James Lochner and Barbara Mattson have compiled a rich resource of twentieth-century cosmology history in the form of news reports on key events, from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
Videos
The Day We Found the Universe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HV23qWIieBw . Distinguished science writer Marcia Bartusiak discusses Hubble’s work and the discovery of the expansion of the cosmos.
Images of the Infant Universe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0AqCwElyUk . Lloyd Knox’s public talk on the latest discoveries about the CMB and what they mean for cosmology (1:16:00).
Runaway Universe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNYVFrnmcOU . Roger Blandford (Stanford Linear Accelerator Center) public lecture on the discovery and meaning of cosmic acceleration and dark energy (1:08:08).
From the Big Bang to the Nobel Prize and on to the James Webb Space Telescope and the Discovery of Alien Life: svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a010300/a010370/index.html. John Mather, NASA Goddard (1:01:02). His Nobel Prize talk from Dec. 8, 2006 can be found at www.nobelprize.org/mediaplayer/index.php?id=74&view=1.
Supernovae and the Discovery of the Accelerating Universe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_D6cwrl0CxA . A public lecture by Nobel Laureate Adam Riess in 2019 (58 min).