本书是一部影印版的国外科普著作。中文书名可译为——《基本宇宙学：从亚里士多德的宇宙到大爆炸》。作者给出的其内容简介为：宇宙学是对整个宇宙起源、大小和演化的研究。每一种文化都发展了一种宇宙论，无论它是基于宗教、哲学或科学原理。在这本书中，西方传统文化中对宇宙的科学认识是从早期的希腊哲学家发展到现代21世纪的观点的。这本书一开始是圣母大学为期一学期课程的一系列课堂笔记，叫作“基本宇宙学”。这是一门为非科学专业学生开设的选修课，旨在让没有数学天赋的学生了解迄今为止宇宙学领域最重要的发现，以及这些发现是如何不断改变我们对宇宙起源和结构的认知的。本书考察了诸如：宇宙从何而来？为什么科学家现在确定它的诞生是在一个名为大爆炸的宇宙火球中？以及大爆炸本身从何而来？课程的重点是对科普读物的课堂讨论，为好奇和聪明的外行人提供阅读材料，并最终聚焦于20世纪末和21世纪初宇宙学中许多有趣和令人兴奋的新发现。这本书的第二部分追溯了大爆炸理论本身的演变，包括最近观测到的宇宙本身随时间加速膨胀的现象。此外，还讨论了现代物理学对我们理解大爆炸机制的贡献，并描述了宇宙在其历史上各个时期的状态。最后，介绍了一些超出当前知识范围的对宇宙学的推测，并描述了我们对宇宙未来发展的理解。

Preface
Acknowledgements
Author biography
1 Thescientific method
1.1 Introduction to thescientific method
1.2some mathematics
2 Early astronomy
3 Nebulae
4 Cosmic distances
4.1 The cosmic distance ladder
4.1.1 The parallax view
4.1.2 The color ofstarlight
4.1.3 The Cepheid variables
4.1.4 Thesupernovascale
4.2spiral nebulae:are they extragalactic?
4.3 The chemical composition ofstars
5space-time
5.1 Thespeed of light
5.2 Thespecial theory of relativity
5.3 The general theory of relativity
5.4 Universal expansion
6 The Big Bang
6.1 Thestructure and history of the Universe
6.2 The geometry ofspace-time
6.3 The father of the Big Bang
6.4 The creation of the elements
7 Cosmic microwave background radiation
7.1 The 'smoking gun'of the Big Bang
7.2 Decoupling
7.3 How bright is the CMB?
7.4 ‘Matter dominated' versus ‘radiation dominated' Universes
7.5 How uniform is the CMB?
8 Dark matter
8.1 Dark matter defined
8.2 Non-baryonic dark matter
9 Thestandard model of cosmology
9.1 Nucleosynthesis
9.1.1 The first frame (t=10-2s)
9.1.2 Thesecond frame (t=10-1s)
9.1.3 The third frame (t=1s)
9.1.4 The fourth frame (t=10s)
9.1.5 The fifth frame (t=100s)
9.1.6 Later frames
9.2 The birth and death ofstars
9.3 Thesize of the Universe
10 The very early Big Bang
10.1 The four forces of nature
10.2 The quantum nature of forces
10.3 The unification of forces
10.4 The quark model
10.5 The leptons
10.6 The gluons
10.7 Thestandard model of high-energy physics
10.8 The history of the Universe: the early frames
10.9 Why matter rather than antimatter?
11 Inflation
11.1 The horizon problem
11.2 The flatness problem
11.3 Thesmoothness problem
11.4 The magnetic monopole problem
11.5 Inflation
11.6 How inflationsolves the Big Bang problems
12 Dark energy
12.1 The curvature ofspace-time
12.2 The accelerating universal expansion
12.3 Dark energy and the CMB
12.4 Is there asignature of inflation in the CMB?
13 Higher dimensions
13.1 Field theories
13.2 Kaluza-Klein theory
13.3 Compactification
13.4 QED
13.5 Quantization of the weak andstrong forces
13.6 Early attempts at a quantum theory of gravity
14string theory
14.1 Particles and ‘string'
14.2 M-theory
14.3 The multiverse
15 Black holes and wormholes
15.1 The life of thesun
15.2 The life of massivestars
15.3 Neutronstars
15.4 Black holes
15.5some properties of black holes
15.6 The thermodynamics of black holes
15.7 Hawking radiation
15.8 Thesingularity at the center of a black hole
16 Reading list
17 Links to astronomy websites
编辑手记