Intro -- Contents -- Preface -- 1 The Vacuum the Universe and Things That Go "Pop" in the Night -- 1.1 The discovery of the vacuum -- 1.2 The rise and fall of the vacuum -- 1.3 The vacuum reborn -- 1.4 The transmutation of the vacuum -- 1.5 The tribulations of a simple oscillator -- 1.6 The aether nouveau regime -- 1.7 The unbearable heaviness of the vacuum -- 2 Eleven Quadrillion Six Hundred Thousand Billion Tonnes of Coal per Second -- 2.1 The eternal triangle -- 2.2 Cracks in the celestial sphere -- 2.3 The rebirth of atoms -- 3 Fin de Siecle Fin du Monde -- 3.1 The atoms of chemistry -- 3.2 The atoms of heat -- 3.3 Chemical analysis without chemistry -- 3.4 Temperature measurement without a thermometer -- 3.5 A bagful of loose ends -- 3.6 Thermodynamics: the 19th century astronomer's best friend -- 3.7 The death of the Universe -- 4 A Mystery Wrapped in an Enigma -- 4.1 The mystery -- 4.2 The enigma -- 5 The Rise of the New Physics -- 5.1 Almost but not quite the alchemist's dream -- 5.2 Light magic -- 5.3 To catch a beam of light -- 5.4 A locked room mystery . . . solved -- 5.5 Of what is the Universe made? -- 6 The Chicken and the Egg -- 6.1 Balancing acts -- 6.2 Neutrons to the rescue? -- 6.3 Cosmology to the rescue? -- 7 The Best of Times and the Worst of Times -- 7.1 Theories to end all theories -- 7.2 Thermonuclear leggo -- 7.3 And yet they shine -- 7.4 The inflationary economy of stars -- 7.5 To see the World in a grain of sand -- 8 A Tale of Two Theories and One Dogma -- 8.1 Fiat lux? -- 8.2 Continuous creation? -- 8.3 Cosmic cooking pots -- 8.4 Death of a travelling dogma -- 9 Relics of a Bygone Age -- 9.1 One man's noise is another man's Nobel prize -- 9.2 Clues about the distant past -- 9.3 Genesis according to Gamow -- 10 Cosmic Ash -- 10.1 "The fault dear Enrico is not in our stars but in your neutrinos".

10.2 Things that go bump in the night -- 10.3 "I come not to bury Caesar but to praise him" -- 10.4 Most of our Universe is missing -- Epilogue - the Mysterious Universe -- A Personal Chronology of 20th Century Astrosphysics -- Bibliography -- Index.

Key Features:A wide-ranging history of the notion of "vacuum"A historical review of the major scientific discoveries from which "nuclear astrophysics" emergedA history of the major controversies surrounding the origin of the elementsA clear, qualitative description of what we now know about the origin of the elementsA critical overview of certain "growth points" in cosmologyA chronological table of major astrophysical discoveries (and related items) made during the 20th century.

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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2018. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.