translucentscribe

I am just finishing an Introduction to Astronomy course and have a new found interest in cosmology. Can anyone recommend a good book to start with? Thanks.

Tim Thompson

There are a lot of decent cosmology books, so it really depends on the leve of detail you want. A really good place to start is Genesis of the Big Bang, Ralph A. Alpher & Robert Herman, Oxford University Press, 2001. No math, mostly a history of where the BB cosmology came from. The authors are two of the founders of BB cosmology, and are best suited to tell the tale (Robert Herman passed away before the book went to press).

Another high recommendation from me would be Cosmology: The Science of the Universe, Edward Harrison, Cambridge University Press 1981, 2000 (2nd ed.). The math is all elementary, and there isn't much of it. The stress is on concepts, and the approach is surprisingly advanced. You get a lot out of the book, and the author includes "reflections" and "projects" at the end of each chapter, in the spirit of questions or problems in a text book, but these are open-ended and more involved. I would say that this is the best cosmology book on the market today, for the reader not interested in the mathematical end. Harrison is likewise one of the main charcters in modern cosmology.

An Introduction to Cosmology, Jayant V. Narlikar, Cambridge University Press 2002 (3rd ed.). A serious cosmology text, with all the math included. Narlikar is a proponent of the quasi steady state alternative cosmology (QSSC), and was a student long ago of Fred Hoyle's. But he really knows standard cosmology, and knows why Big Bang cosmology is the most accepted theory. His text is as good as any other, and does not suffer from Narlikar's pro-QSSC position, and is enhanced over other cosmology texts, because he does include a discussion of the QSSC at the appropriate level.

Finally, I will also mention Brian Green's book The Elegant Universe, which I don't have with me at the moment. A non mathematical introduction to the relatively new string theory of quantum cosmology. As good a "popular level" book on the theory as you will find anywhere, and a good intro to general relativity too. But it can still be esoteric in places, especially when trying to explain 8 dimensional Calabi-Yau spaces in popular language.

translucentscribe

Thank you for the very thorough reply. I'll check them out.

Secular Pinoy

I like John Gribbin's In Search of the Big Bang.

luvluv

I'll second that Elegant Universe reccomendation. Loved that book.

Unbeliever

The best book on relativity I've ever come across is Relativity Visualized by Lewis Carol Epstein