Written by a well-known astrophysicist, who is also a superbly talented writer, this work deals with the matter and radiation content of the universe, the formation of galaxies, and provides a comprehensive introduction into relativistic astrophysics as needed for the clarification of cosmological ideas.

Inhalt

I Preliminaries.- 1.Introduction, History and Outline.- 2. The Large Scale Structure of the Universe.- 3. Galaxies.- 4. Clusters of Galaxies.- II The Basic Framework.- 5. The Theoretical Framework.- 6. An Introduction to Relativistic Gravity.- 7. The Friedman World Models.- 8. The Determination of Cosmological Parameters.- 9. The Thermal History of the Universe.- 10 Nucleosynthesis in the Early Universe.- III The Development of Primordial Fluctuations Under Gravity.- 11 The Evolution of Fluctuations in the Standard Big Bang.- 12 The Simplest Picture of Galaxy Formation and Why it Fails.- 13 Dark Matter and Galaxy Formation.- 14 Correlation Functions and the Spectrum of the Initial Fluctuations.- 15 Fluctuations in the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation.- IV The Post-Recombination Universe.- 16 The Post-recombination Universe: The Dark Ages.- 17 The Evolution of Galaxies and Active Galaxies with Cosmic Epoch.- 18 The Evolution of Star and Element Formation Rates with Cosmic Epoch.- 19 Diffuse Intergalactic Gas.- 20 Final Things.- References.