Genesis of The Big Bang Ralph A. Alpher
Genesis of The Big Bang Ralph A. Alpher
Alpher
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G E N E S I S
OF THE
BIG B A N G
his is a story of the theory of the Big
logical transitions.
Ralph A. Alpher
Robert Herman
OXFORD
U N I V E R S I T Y PRESS
2001
OXFORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
Oxford New York
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Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
Preface
vi Preface
interpreting science for the layman, which conveyed to his readers his
enjoyment in doing science. Because he wrote on physics and cosmol
ogy at a popular level, and because he injected a considerable amount of
humor into his presentations, he was frequently not taken seriously by
too many of his fellow scientists. His not being taken seriously is some
thing that rubbed off on the two of us as his colleagues, particularly be
cause we were working in such a speculative area as cosmology. Never
theless, a number of current colleagues attribute their early stimulation
toward a career in science to his popular books on physics and cosmol
ogy, particularly One, Two, Three . . . Infinity (1947).
Our book is intended for a rather broad audience, although we do not
pretend to have Gamow's skills in popular writing. We attempt to deal
with technical details in the text through descriptive explanations, to the
best of our ability; some of the relevant mathematical material is treated
in the appendix.
Since we want to emphasize primarily that segment of the subject in
which we were personally involved, we have not described in any depth
the increasing amount of recent research that attempts to combine high-
energy particle physics with cosmology at extraordinarily short times
after the singular event called the Big Bang. This aspect of the field is in
a much greater state of flux than the development of the standard model
on which we focus, although there have been successes in dealing with
the physics of these very early times or at least in understanding some
of the questions previously left unanswered by the standard model. Since
we have not been personally involved, however, we leave it to others to
write historical accounts of recent concepts, particularly as the connec
tion between theory and observation continues to improve. Moreover,
we address the exciting and voluminous research being done under the
rubric of observational cosmology only when it is particularly cogent to
the various subjects we discuss.
The organization of the book is as follows. First we present some his
torical background to develop a context and then go on to a coherent
account of what is known as the standard Big Bang model, so that the
reader will have an idea from the start of what Big Bang cosmology is all
about. In subsequent chapters we address the conception and develop
ment of the model in what we hope is an orderly manner, although it is
our experience that scientific developments appear to be orderly only in
publications that review a field of activity. We deal very briefly with some
of the proposed alternatives to the Big Bang model. On occasion we in-
Preface vii
ject a remark or two on our perception of how science appears to be done,
based on the material and story we have by then conveyed. A selected
reading list of some current books and a few relevant articles on cosmol
ogy is appended.
This book was completed by Alpher, since Robert Herman, his collabo
rator for over 50 years, died on February 13, 1997. We had fortunately
worked through an outline of the substantive content of the book and
had even developed first rough drafts of £ few chapters. By and large,
however, what appears here is the work of Alpher, with a flavor that he
hopes would meet with Herman's approval.
Finally, we reiterate that this book is not intended as a treatise on
modern cosmology but rather as a window on the experiences of two
collaborators in the critical areas of primordial nucleosynthesis and the
cosmic microwave background radiation.
RAA
RH
I owe much to many: to the late George Gamow for inspiration in phys
ics and cosmology, and for a lot of perspiration; to the late Robert
Herman, who, after 50 years of collaboration and shared perspiration and
frustration, passed away as this book was beginning to take shape; to my
wife, Louise, son Victor, daughter Harriet, and son-in-law Glen, and to
Helen Herman, for their continuing support as Herman and I suffered
through many years of the ups and downs of our involvement in Big
Bang cosmology (Victor was kind enough to read the book in manuscript
and supply insightful comments). James Rosenthal provided computer
skills in the preparation of the mathematical appendix and illustrations.
George Wise helped on some historical questions during the final stages
of preparation. I am pleased to acknowledge help in the final editing of
the manuscript by Philip Koske and Donald R. White. I am indebted to
the Physics Department of Union College for the home, facilities, and
sympathetic assistance it has provided over the last decade, and to sev
eral people from its Office of Computer Services, who assisted in my
problems with dealing with a computer that I frequently overloaded and
otherwise misused. Finally, the book has been much improved by the
suggestions of Kirk Jensen, Executive Editor, and the production staff at
Oxford University Press.
RAA
viii Preface
Contents
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