Title Our cosmic origins : from the big bang to the emergence of life and intelligence Author(s) Armand Delsemme Description 1 online resource (xviii, 322 pages) : digital, PDF file(s) Abstract Note Our Cosmic Origins, first published in 1998, traces the remarkable story of the emergence of life and intelligence right through the complex evolutionary history of the Universe. Armand Delsemme weaves together a rich tapestry of science, bringing together cosmology, astronomy, geology, biochemistry and biology in this wide-ranging book. In following the complex, chronological story, we discover how the first elements formed in the early Universe, how stars and planets were born, how the first bacteria evolved towards a plethora of plants and animals, and how the coupling of the eye and brain led to the development of self-awareness and, ultimately, intelligence. Professor Delsemme concludes with the tantalising suggestion that the existence of alien life and intelligence is likely, and examines our chances of contacting it. This provocative book provides the general reader with an accessible and wide-ranging account of how life evolved on Earth and how likely it is to exist elsewhere in the Universe Contents Note Foreword / Christian de Duve -- Nobel laureate -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Locating humans in the Universe: Introduction -- Pascal's two infinities -- Ascent to the extremely large -- Descent to the extremely small -- Race toward complexity: Grand beginning -- First fossil trace -- Universe becomes transparent -- Origin of the clusters of galaxies -- Birth of stars -- Auasars -- Stellar alchemy of metals: Life of the stars -- Fast evolution of massive stars -- Steady evolution of less massive stars -- Slow evolution of low-mass stars -- Strange evolution of double stars -- Seeding interstellar space -- Second generation of stars -- Chemistry of interstellar clouds -- Formation of the planets: Universe grows old -- Cosmic abundance of the elements -- Chondrites -- Cometary dust -- Variety of interstellar chemistry -- Gravitational collapse -- Accretion disk of the Sun -- Temperature distribution in the disk -- Formation of planetesimals --T Tauri wind of the Sun -- Agglomeration of the planets -- Giant planets -- Asteroids and comets -- Terrestrial planets -- Agglomeration of the Earth -- Formation of the Moon -- Fate of the planetismals -- Planetary system -- Emergence of life: Origin of the biosphere -- Cometary bombardment -- Atmosphere and the oceans of the Earth -- Emergence of life on Earth -- Defining life -- Genetic code -- Fossil traces of evolution -- Evolution of the genetic message -- Survival of the fittest -- Evolution in molecular biology --Origin of life -- Dissipative structures -- Chance or necessity? -- History of life: Primordial Earth -- Life makes its appearance -- World of bacteria -- Eeukaryotic cell -- Earth and the Moon -- Evolution of the atmosphere -- Age of the stromalites -- Marine animals -- Glaciations -- Sexual reproduction -- Life invades the continents -- Age of the dinosaurs -- Major extinctions -- Awakening of intelligence: Nervous system -- Age of the mammals -- Evolution of the brain -- Last glaciations -- Homo sapiens -- Other worlds: Plurality of inhabited worlds -- Exploration of neighboring planets -- Planet Mars -- Bacteria in a Martian meteorite -- Planet Venus -- Evolutionary divergence of the rocky planets -- Elsewhere in the Solar System -- Where else could we find life? -- Where are the other planetary systems? -- Oxygen and life -- Intelligent life -- In search of other civilizations -- Perspectives: The evolutionary thread -- 'Augustinian era' -- After the Big Bang -- Branchings toward complexity -- Anthropic principle -- Multiple universes -- Scale of the Universe -- The future of the Universe -- Future of our civilization -- Next millennium -- Distant future of life -- Where are the others? -- Answers of evolution -- Free will and quanta -- Why does the Universe exist? -- 'Feeling of the mysterious' -- Appendix A: Standard model of the physics of elementary particles-- Appendix B Symmetry in physics -- Appendix C: Strange role of time in relativity -- Appendix D: Measurement of long time spans and the age of the Universe -- Appendix E: Standard model of the Big Bang -- Appendix F: Cause of the Big Bang and inflation -- Appendix G: Chirality -- Glossary -- Bibliography -- Figure index -- Table index -- Name index -- Subject index Notes Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015) Keyword(s) 1. ASTRONOMY 2. COSMOLOGY 3. EBOOK 4. EBOOK - CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Item Type Book Multi-Media Links media link description Circulation Data Accession#   Call# Status Issued To Return Due On Physical Location OB0596     On Shelf