The Creation of the Universe, George Gamow (ISBN 9780486438689, Dover)

I bought this book not so long ago when I found a reference to it in another book. It originally came out in 1952 but the Dover edition is a reprint from 2004. The dedication of the book reads ‘To fellow cosmogonists of all lands and ages’. Although the book contains little mathematics, it is not a popular science book about the big bang but rather a historical treatise setting forth the arguments in favour of the big bang hypothesis. Gamow describes the different phases of the evolution of the universe after the big bang from a hot radiation plasma to today. How elementary particles formed and then later atoms and molecules and how the boundary conditions of the model match with certain experimental observations. Of course, compared to state of the big bang model today the theory described in the book is rather elementary but many key ideas were already present. This book gives a glimpse back in time, showing us science in the making. It doesn’t have the polished text book content with only the final ‘product’ and it has a lot more technical argumentation compared to a standard popular science books. Gamow’s writing style is fluent, more in line with a well written popular science book than the typical text book writing style. The book is barely 140 pages thick so it will take not much time. I found this a unique reading experience, I cannot compare to anything like else I ready before. A science book that inadvertently became a (popular) history of science book. A bit niche market for sure.