Das Echo der Zeit: auf den Spuren der Entstehung des Universums

In April 1992, a discovery was made that changed the way we view the world. Dr. Smoot, distinguished cosmologist and adventurer, whose quest for cosmic knowledge had taken him from the Brazilian rain forest to the South Pole, unveiled his momentous discovery, bringing to light the very nature of the universe. For anyone who has ever looked up at the night sky and wondered, for anyone who has ever longed to pull aside the fabric of the universe for a glimpse of what lies behind it, Wrinkles in Time is the story of Smoot's search to uncover the cosmic seeds of the universe.

Wrinkles in Time is the Double Helix of cosmology, an intimate look at the inner world of men and women who ask, “Why are we here?” It tells the story of George Smoot's dogged pursuit of the cosmic wrinkles in the frozen wastes of Antarctica, on mountaintops, in experiments borne aloft aboard high-altitude balloons, U-2 spy planes & finally a space satellite.

Wrinkles in Time presents the hard science behind the structured violence of the big bang theory through breathtakingly clear, lucid images and meaningful comparisons. Scientists and nonscientists alike can follow with rapt attention the story of how, in a fiery creation, wrinkles formed in space ultimately to become stars, galaxies and even greater structures. Anyone can appreciate the implications of a universe whose end is written in its beginnings—whose course developed according to a kind of cosmic DNA, which guided the universe from simplicity and symmetry to ever-greater complexity and structure.

As controversial as it may seem today, Wrinkles in Time reveals truths that, in an earlier century, would have doomed its proclaimers to the fiery stake. For four thousand years some have accepted the Genesis account of cosmic origins; for most of this century, scientists debated two rival scientific explanations known as the steady state and big bang theories. And now, Wrinkles in Time tells what really happened.

8 pages of color photographs
50 line drawings

George Smoot attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he received his B.A. in mathematics and physics in 1966 and his Ph.D. in 1970. Since 1974, he has worked on NASA's Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite, leading the instrument team that detected cosmic “seeds.” A researcher at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, he is also a member of the Center for Particle Astrophysics and the Space Sciences Laboratory, both at the University of California, Berkeley.

Keay Davidson is an award-winning science writer for the San Francisco Examiner. He also writes a popular weekly syndicated column, “Down to a Science.” He lives in San Francisco.

Table of Contents

Preface
Chapter 1: In the beginning
Chapter 2: The dark night sky
Chapter 3: The expanding universe
Chapter 4: Cosmological conflict
Chapter 5: In search of antiworlds
Chapter 6: Spy in the sky
Chapter 7: A different universe
Chapter 8: The heart of darkness
Chapter 9: The inflationary universe
Chapter 10: The promise of space
Chapter 11: COBE: The Aftermath
Chapter 12: First glimpse of wrinkles
Chapter 13: An awful place to do science
Chapter 14: Toward the ultimate question
Appendix: Contributors to COBE
To Dig Deeper: Further Readings
Acknowledgments
Index