Observational Astronomy Very Short

Very Short Introductions: Brilliant, Sharp, Inspiring

This book presents novel observational evidence toward detecting and characterizing the products of massive, interacting binary stars. As a majority of massive stars are born in close binary systems, a large number of so-called massive binary interaction products are predicted to exist; however, few have been identified so far. Based on observations with the largest telescopes around the world, equipped with state-of-the-art instrumentation, this book helps to remedy this situation. In her outstanding PhD-thesis Julia Bodensteiner identifies a new class of post-interaction binaries in a short-lived phase just briefly after the initially more massive star has been stripped of part of its envelope.

In 1997, contrary to the ruling paradigm which was that of a dark matter filled, decelerating universe, my work pointed to a dark energy driven accelerating universe with a small cosmological constant. Moreover, the many supposedly accidental Large Number relations in cosmology, including the mysterious Weinberg formula were now deduced from the theory. Observational confirmation for this scenario came in 1998, while dark energy itself was finally reconfirmed in 2003, thanks to the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.

by Steven Carlip (Author)
Einstein's general theory of relativity – currently our best theory of gravity – is important not only to specialists, but to a much wider group of physicists