We human beings — who are ourselves mere collections of fundamental particles of nature — try to wonder, seek answers and gazing at the immense heavens above, we have always asked a multitude of questions: When did the first black holes form in pre-galactic halos and what is their initial mass and spin? What is the mechanism of black hole formation in galactic nuclei, and how do black holes evolve over cosmic time due to accretion and mergers? What is the role of black hole mergers in galaxy formation? Does gravity travel at the speed of light? Does the graviton have mass? How does gravitational information propagate: Are there more than two transverse modes of propagation? What is the structure of space-time just outside astrophysical black holes? Do their space times have horizons? What happens in a black hole? Many others!
Understanding the Universe: Quarks, Leptons and the Big Bang is a clear, readable and self-contained introduction to chaos of physics and related areas of science. It bridges the gap and addresses the questions that are of interest to us all or at least to all of us reading this book and lead us to study science in the first place.
The book concentrates on presenting the subject from the understanding perspective of physics and brings the reader right up to date with curious aspects of physics established over the last few centuries. The book assumes science a journey not a destination and the advance of knowledge is an infinite progression towards a goal that forever recedes. This book will be of interest to students, teachers and general science readers interested in fundamental ideas of physics.
