The State of the Universe: A Primer in Modern Cosmology

The universe is a mess. Or rather, our understanding of it is. That’s the message of this lively introduction to the conundrums shaking up the field of cosmology. Pedro Ferreira, a noted lecturer in astrophysics at Oxford, explains how a universe once ruled by Einstein’s simple equations has given way to a more complex and confusing one: where mysterious “dark matter” outweighs visible matter a hundred to one, and “dark energy” seems to be hurling the galaxies apart. Ferreira takes readers on a fascinating journey through the history of astronomy to show how we arrived here, clarifying today’s many contending theories.