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EDITORIAL INFORMATION

The Big Bang: a big bust? The cosmos seems to be in crisis, and you don't have to be a rocket scientist to see it. How, for instance, can the universe be full of stars far older than itself? How could space have once expanded faster than the speed of light? How can most of the matter in the universe be "missing"? And what kind of truly weird matter could possibly account for ninety percent of the universe's total mass?

This brief and witty book, by the award-winning science writer Donald Goldsmith, takes on these and other key questions about the origin and evolution of the cosmos. By clearly laying out what currently know about the universe as a whole, Goldsmith let us see firsthand, and judge for ourselves, whether modern cosmology is in state of crisis. Einsten's Greatest Blunder? puts the biggest subject of all-the story of the universe as scientists understand it-within the grasp of English-speaking earthlings.

(Extracted from the dust jacket).

GENERAL TABLE OF CONTENTS

-Acknowledgments.

-Contents.

-1- Alice's Cosmic Restaurant.

-2- Gravity, Motion, and Light.

-3- Why Stars Shine.

-4- Mapping the Milky Way.

-5- The Discovery of Universal Expansion.

-6- Looking for the Big Bang.

-7- Walls of Galaxies, Fingers of God.

-8- The Elusive Age of the Cosmos.

-9- An Uncertain Future.

-10- The Inflationary Theory.

-11- The Mystery of the Missing Mass.

-12- In Search of Most of the Universe.

-13- World Enough and Time.

-14- Hot Dark Matter, Cold Dark Matter, What's the Matter.

-Index.

OUR REVIEW

It's healthy to take some of the contradictions displayed by science itself as a joke. Goldsmith does this very well when he tells us about the problems that cosmology is having thanks to the numerous discoveries made by the latest astronomical satellites, such as the Hubble Space Telescope. We are living now in a very crucial era where we will have to solve these problems, by rewriting our theories, or otherwise, turn a new page, and begin at the beginning.

These contradictions usually find a fast reflection in the press and the other broadcasting media, yet they are rarely treated in a coherent, precise way. Goldsmith not only makes us realise what appears to be not quite all right, but also he explains why and what could be, in some cases, the solution to the problem. Being an expert science writer, the author makes a wonderful job, while showing us everything we need to know about the question with a great clarity. The book is pleasantly illustrated with some recent images from the Hubble Space Telescope and will no doubt be appreciated by a wide variety of readers. Cosmology is by itself a sensitive issue when it tries to explain what it consists in to a reader who is not scientifically ready for it. Goldsmith succeeds in doing precisely that, as he narrates us the most important points in this science and their relationship with the current status of affairs. His good humor, a thing we can always be grateful for, will make our reading this volume much easier.