The First Three Minutes: A Modern View Of The Origin Of The Universe

Black-Body Radiation:

Published in 1977 "The First Three Minutes" was an immediate hit with the general lay-public, from teens to adults, and instantly reset the bar for quality science writing for all science books that followed. Written by American theoretical physicist and future Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg, it introduces the wonders of Cosmology and Physics to "anyone willing to puzzle through some detailed arguments", in this he was eminently successful. In the 1993 edition he wrote a new preface and an "Afterword: Cosmology Since 1977" in which he updates some features of the book, but, for the most part, the main text was left pretty much as is. Though written for interested layperson the book also attracted a lot of attention among his professional colleagues as well and has continued to do so up to the present day. It's not surprising to find Weinberg and/or "The First Three Minutes" referenced in moderne day books by Brian Greene, Michio Kaku, Stephen Hawking and Carl Sagan along with a host of others. Be that as it may, there have been a lot of changes in this branch of Physics, new research and observations have altered the way we look at The Big Bang and the first few minutes of our universe. In spite of these modern alterations the original theory's basic tenet is still valid. Any "stale dated" issues that may or may not be present should not alter the benefits of this book for the general reader. Just keep in mind when the book was written and use that as a jumping off place for more recent works. Dr Weinberg's writing is smooth and entertaining while keeping the scientific jargon and mathematical underpinnings to a minimum. To help the reader understand what science thinks the first minutes were really like Dr Weinberg provides an overview of some other Cosmological properties like; the expansion of the universe, the cosmic microwave background radiation, thermal equilibrium and absolute time units. In the latter half of the book Weinberg takes a brief look at the h...