Berkeley Book List: Cosmology and Physics

George F. Smoot, professor, Physics The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory, Brian Greene, W.W. Norton & Company, 1999 The Illustrated Brief History of Time, Updated and Expanded Edition, Stephen William Hawking, Bantam, 1996 The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe, Steven Weinberg, Basic Books, 1977 Mr Tompkins in Paperback : Comprising 'Mr Tompkins in Wonderland' and 'Mr Tompkins Explores the Atom', George Gamow, Cambridge University Press, 1993 (reissue edition) The Inflationary Universe: The Quest for a New Theory of Cosmic Origins, Alan H. Guth and Alan P. Lightman, Perseus Publishing, 1997 The Runaway Universe: The Race to Find the Future of the Cosmos, Donald Goldsmith, Perseus Publishing, 2000

Most humans are fascinated by the ageless human inquiry into how things fundamentally work and why the Universe is the way that it is. These are the foundations for the questions: Who am I? and What is my place in the Universe? Physicists have made incredible progress in the effort to understand how the Universe works and have written a number of books designed to share these great intellectual achievements with the public. The rate of progress in cosmology is still rapid and any reading list in the field will have to be updated regularly. The books I suggest are:

One of the most ambitious theories ever proposed – superstring theory – proclaims that everything and every happening in the universe, from the continual jiggling of subatomic quarks to the majestic dancing of galaxies, results from one overarching physical principle and is constructed from one single entity: microscopically tiny vibrating loops of energy, a billionth of a billionth the size of an atom. The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory makes these concepts accessible and has been accompanied by a new 3-hour PBS documentary with animations and special effects as well as additional material for support.

The Illustrated Brief History of Time, Updated and Expanded Edition is an updated version of Stephen Hawking’s classic 1988 book, "A Brief History of Time." The expanded edition includes many more illustrations and the addition of some of the newest discoveries in cosmology.

The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe is a classic, an excellent and well-written popular account of the pillars of cosmology - the big bang theory, primordial synthesis of the light nuclei, the cosmic microwave background - by Steven Weinberg, a major leading theorist and a Nobel prize winning physicist.

Mr Tompkins in Paperback : Comprising 'Mr Tompkins in Wonderland' and 'Mr Tompkins Explores the Atom' is practically an antique. Yet, it remains a clear and engaging set of short books that illustrate relativity (in Wonderland) and quantum mechanics and beyond (in Explores the Atom). Readers follow the adventures of Mr. Tompkins, a bank clerk interested in modern science, during his life in imaginary towns where fundamental physical constants are very different (e.g., the speed of light is 60 miles/hour).

A rapid accelerating expansion of the early universe – a theory called Inflation – is very successful in explaining the flatness, the large-scale uniformity of space and the origin of structure such as galaxies and clusters. Inflation, however, lacks direct evidence and requires huge extrapolation of the laws of physics. The Inflationary Universe: The Quest for a New Theory of Cosmic Origins describes the development of the Inflation concept and related topics.

The Big Bang and then Inflation followed by a slowing expansion seem to properly describe developing stages of our visible Universe today. However, shortly after 1997 publication of "The Inflationary Universe: The Quest for a New Theory of Cosmic Origins," cosmologists were surprised by research showing that the universe has begun to accelerate again. This finding is relatively new and there are few books on the subject. A good introduction is The Runaway Universe: The Race to Find the Future of the Cosmos. This book has the advantage of being associated with a PBS special, "The Runaway Universe," which provides additional information.

About George Smoot
George Smoot, who headed a team that was able to image the infant universe, revealing its newborn form and the patterns that have shaped the universe, is a UC Berkeley physics professor and an astrophysicist at Lawrence

Berkeley National Laboratory. Over the last 30 years, Smoot has led a succession of projects that have helped to change the nature of the quest to understand the origin and evolution of the universe. Historically, cosmology had been essentially a theoretical field. Smoot was one of the first pioneering astrophysicists who devised ways to conduct experiments that produced data and information about the early universe. Born in Yukon, Florida, Smoot's father was a hydrologist for the U.S. Geological Survey and his mother was a science teacher and school principal. Smoot says his parents instilled in him a joy for learning and an interest in science and math. He received his Ph.D. in physics at MIT in 1970 and decided to enter the field of cosmology, which he believed was a frontier of fundamental science that was ripe for exploration. Honors include the NASA Medal for Exceptional Science Achievement, the Kilby Award, the Lawrence Award, and the Albert Einstein Medal. Additional information about Smoot and his research is online.