A Brief History of the Universe

Since the dawn of humanity, men have attempted to divine the nature of the heavens. The first astronomers mapped the movement of the seasons and used the positions of the constellations for augurs and astrology. Today, the search goes ever deeper into the nature of reality and life itself. In this accessible overview, astrophysicist J. P. McEvoy tells the story of how our knowledge of the cosmos has developed, beginning with Stonehenge and ending with the current debate on String Theory. He puts in context many of the greatest discoveries of all time and many of the dominant personalities: Aristotle, Copernicus, and Isaac Newton, and as we approach the modern era, Einstein, Eddington, and Hawking. McEvoy’s own argument is that astronomy is a science of observation and experiment rather than models and mathematics, and that much of current thinking is too reliant on unprovable conjecture. This controversial belief informs a colourful and fascinating account.