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Most well-read, but non-scientific, people will have heard of the term "Big Bang" as a description of the origin of the Universe. They will recognize that DNA identifies individuals and will know that the origin of life is one of the great unsolved scientific mysteries. This book brings together all of that material. Starting with the creation of space and time - known as the Big Bang - the book traces causally related steps through the formation of matter, of stars and planets, the Earth itself, the evolution of the Earth's surface and atmosphere, and then through to the beginnings of life an

Big bang theory. --- Big bang cosmology --- Superdense theory --- Cosmogony --- Cosmology --- Expanding universe --- Big bang theory

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The cosmic microwave background radiation is the afterglow of the big bang: a tenuous signal, more than 13 billion years old, which carries the answers to many of the questions about the nature of our Universe. It was serendipitously discovered in 1964, and thoroughly investigated in the last four decades by a large number of experiments. Two Nobel Prizes in Physics have already been awarded for research on the cosmic background radiation: one in 1978 to Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, who first discovered it, the other in 2006, to George Smoot and John Mather, for the results of the COBE satellite. Most cosmological information is encoded in the cosmic background radiation by acoustic oscillations in the dense plasma that filled the primordial Universe: a "music" of the big bang, which cosmologists have long been trying to reconstruct and analyze, in order to distinguish different cosmological models, much like one can distinguish different musical instruments by their timbre and overtones. Only lately, this amazing cosmic sound has been unveiled by such experiments as BOOMERANG and MAXIMA and, more recently, by the WMAP satellite. This led to a giant leap in our understanding of the Universe, but the investigation is not ended yet. The book focuses on how the exploration of the cosmic background radiation has shaped our picture of the Universe, leading even the non-specialized readers towards the frontier of cosmological research, helping them to understand, using a simple language and captivating metaphors, the mechanisms behind the Universe in which we live. "This non-technical tour of the discovery and significance of the whispers of creation, the fossil radiation from the Big Bang, is a delight to read." Prof. Joe Silk, University of Oxford, a pioneering contributor to understanding the structure of the cosmic background radiation.

Big bang theory --- Cosmic background radiation. --- Cosmology. --- Astronomy --- Deism --- Metaphysics --- Background radiation, Cosmic --- Cosmic microwave background --- Cosmic microwave radiation --- Microwave background --- Extraterrestrial radiation --- Big bang cosmology --- Superdense theory --- Cosmogony --- Cosmology --- Expanding universe --- Astronomy. --- Astronomy, Astrophysics and Cosmology. --- Popular Science in Astronomy. --- Astrophysics and Astroparticles. --- Classical and Quantum Gravitation, Relativity Theory. --- Astrophysics. --- Gravitation. --- Field theory (Physics) --- Matter --- Physics --- Antigravity --- Centrifugal force --- Relativity (Physics) --- Astronomical physics --- Cosmic physics --- Properties