<!g>Ellis, George F. R. and William R. Stoeger. “Introduction to <!g>General Relativity and <!g>Cosmology."

George Ellis and Bill Stoeger present the standard model of our universe, the Friedmann- Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker (FLRW) or <!g>Big Bang model, including its foundations in <!g>special relativity and general relativity, and its observational features. They also discuss inflationary models which solve many of the problems of the standard model. Attention is given to the assumptions which go into cosmology, some of which are technical, others more philosophical in nature. In a key passage, Ellis and Stoeger focus on the initial <!g>singularity, t=0, “the boundary to the universe where the laws of physics break down . . .” Is t=0 a “creation” event, or is it a transitory feature of the standard cosmological model which will disappear when a <!g>quantum theory of gravity is achieved? They also touch on questions of the origin of structure, complexity and life in the universe.

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