Fundamental Ideas in Cosmology

This book examines the world of cosmological research from many different perspectives. It is not another textbook on the standard model and its underlying paradigms (inflation, dark matter, dark energy). Rather, it is an in-depth critical review of the research associated with challenges to the standard Big Bang scenario. There is a dearth of serious discussion among cosmologists concerning the foundations of standard cosmology, and this book aims to fill in a number of gaps in the published literature.

While the bulk of observational evidence lends overwhelming support to the standard model, some results call into question certain aspects that need to be meticulously examined. For example, there are several observations such as lithium abundance, CMB power asymmetry, missing satellites and very massive galaxies at high redshift, that do not fit well into the current model. These observations, while representing a problem, are usually dismissed as peculiarities that will soon be fixed within the framework of an otherwise correct model. The goal of this is to give room and visibility to those investigators who present and discuss observations that are unexplained, or apparently at odds with, the current standard Lambda-CDM model.

Topics covered in the book include an introduction to standard cosmology, examples of alternative theories, tests and problems with the standard model, and a discussion on the philosophy and sociology of cosmology.