Customer Reviews

Cosmology and Controversy

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This book is a detailed and masterful description of the history of big bang cosmology, from its emergence in the 1940s to its observational validation in the 1960s. It is also an inquiry into the nature of the scientific progress -- an equally fascinating subject. The book is complete with personal histories of the main participants and gives unique insights into their motivation and the evolution of their views, often obtained through personal correspondence with the author. Being a cosmologist myself, I can add that the book is written with a deep understanding of the subject.

Although a bit dated, Helge Kragh is doubtless one of the top Historians of Science dealing with Cosmology. I would recommend this very readable book to anyone interest in the origin of the universe, current thinking about where it is headed, and interpretations of trends amongst the ideas and research of the top people in the field. Kragh's command of the field is top-notch, judging from his references (yep, it is a HE, from Denmark). You'll have this on your reference shelf for years to come.

This very good book is a history of scientific cosmology from its initiation with Einstein's development of General Relativity to the establishment of the Big Bang theory, approximately from about 1920 to 1970. As Kragh demonstrates, cosmology in the modern, scientific sense begins with Einstein's publication of the Theory of General Relativity which made possible the development of models of the universe. Simple models developed originally by Einstein himself and the Dutch astronomer De Sitter depicted static universes and were based the existing astronomical data suggesting a static universe. The accumulation of astronomical data indicating a larger and expanding universe plus the exploration of models led to alternative models, notably those of the Belgian astrophysicist and priest George Lemaitre, the first systematic development of the Big Bang hypothesis. Kragh discusses very nicely development of these ideas, alternative approaches developed by the small number of other investigators interested in cosmology, and the interaction between theory and observation. He then describes the post-WWII emergence of the major alternative to the Big Bang hypothesis, the Steady State theory developed by the British scientists Hoyle, Gold, Bondi. The development of this theory, the major expansion of the Big Bang theory by American investigators led by George Gamow, the interaction of theory and observational work, and the general nature of the controversy is delineated very well by Kragh in an account that looks both at the primary literature and the general context. Kragh discusses philosophical issues, different national traditions, the impact of new methods in astronomy, and the impact of other developments in physics. For example, in the late 1950s, there was a revival of interest in General Relativity and the emergence of experimental methods to evaluate General Relativity. The success of General Relativity in these experiments gave credance to cosmological models, like the Big Bang, based on General Relativity. Kragh's discussion of the interaction of theory and experiment in the resolution of the controversy in favor of the Big Bang theory is simply excellent.

This book can be seen to some extent as a case study testing Kuhn's famous model of scientific progression. While Kragh uses Kuhnian terms like paradigm, his overall conclusion is that Kuhn's model doesn't really describe the way this major scientific development unfolded. Kragh's narrative indicates something much more like Kuhn's "normal science" as the predominant mode of scientific progression.

The ideal reader for this book is a cosmologist or physicist with considerable knowledge of cosmology. Kragh presents quite a bit of the narrative by showing the actual equations. Nonetheless, this book is definitely intelligible in a general way to readers with only a vague knowledge of cosmology (like me). Kragh is a very good writer who is careful to provide narrative accessible to general readers. I, for example, don't have the physics to understand cosmology in depth but I was able to get a good qualitative sense of the important developments and historical process.

Indeed, this book is superbly written. The account of the early works on the big bang is excellent. The author's knowledge of the subject is amazing. However, the central subject of the book is the bitter controversy between big bang and the steady state theory during the fifties and early sixties, and the book is very long on this subject. It is difficult to understand how this can have any interest to a scientific readership. The steady state theory was clearly inspired by philosophical prejudices which are quite outside science. The "perfect cosmological principle" on which it is based is quite arbitrary, and does not guarantee, as Bondi claimed, general invariance in the meaning implied by general relativity. This is to be opposed to Weyl's principle, which has a strictly empirical status. How, in these conditions could such a controversy be interesting from a scientific standpoint? I nevertheless give 3 stars to this book, as it remains a good piece of history.

This book is as dense as the primordial singularity! If you want proof, just turn to page 8, where the author blithely introduces Eintein's gravitational field equations: R(mn)-1/2 g(mn)R = -kT(mn). In his words, "Mathematically, the quantities with double indices are tensors, and, since the indices refer to the four coordinates of space-time, the tensor equation comprises ten second-order differential equations (R(mn)=R(nm), etc.; n, m=0,1,2,3)." [Lest you wondered, the "quantity R(mn) denotes the Ricci curvature tensor, and R is a curvature invariant derived from R(mn)."] Now, if you already understand that sort of mathematical symbolism and find clarity in the accompanying verbiage, or if you have an professional interest in recent (20th c.) history of scientific cosmology, then this book is for you. But if you are a reasonably intelligent layperson, with or without advanced degrees in other fields, you may agree that the author's focus on esoteric minutiae and excruciating detail, rather than explanation using ordinary language and analogy--like all good science writers and teachers--rather dashes hopes that "this book will not circulate in academic circles only [xi]." It is very interesting to learn even a smidgen about how SS was repeatedly modified ad hoc to "save the appearances"-yet this is just what we see happening with BB and inflation today. For example, Hoyle's postulation (p. 366) of separate "bubble universes"-that are unobservable in principle-strangely presages much of contemporary "scientific cosmology" involving inflation scenarios. That is, contrary to the previous reviewer's comments, BB is just a ideologically loaded as SS (a topic for which you might see Jastrow's "God and the Astronomers"). Overall, I suggest that you excuse yourself from this user-hostile tome with an audience identity problem. Unfortunately, there seems to be no other work on Big Bang vs. Steady State that follows the arguments and trajectories of these 2 theories as they unfolded in time. Ay, here's the rub: 'tis a pity Thomas Kuhn isn't still around to do justice to this topic...