New perspectives in astrophysical cosmology. (Q2717134)

The first edition (1995) was not reviewed. NEWLINENEWLINENEWLINEThe famous author gave a series of six lectures as ``Lezioni Lincei'' in Milan. Following that event this booklet has been edited. In the Preface the writer says: ``This is definitely not a `textbook', and cannot serve as a self-contained primer''. NEWLINENEWLINENEWLINEThere are six chapters: 1. The cosmological framework, 2. Galaxies and dark matter, 3. Emergence of cosmic structure, 4. Quasars and their demography, 5. Some probes and relics of the high-redshift universe, 6. Some fundamental questions, followed by References, Some further reading, Author index and Subject index. NEWLINENEWLINENEWLINEThe author refers to 154 papers or books, in total, gives his opinion concerning them, discusses them and says: ``The attitudes of theorists, however, seem to have changed markedly''. Thoroughly chosen 36 figures explain the text. Starting with classic opinions scouts the reader to the most recent development of modern cosmology. A treasury of up to this book not being answered questions. One may meet: pre-galactic history, hot-big-bang, dark matter, gravitational instability, microwave background, binary black holes, cosmic strings, inflationary models, to list some of paragraph's titles, which should rise the interest for consideration. The distinction between probable hypotheses and confirmed theories has been underlined. NEWLINENEWLINENEWLINEThe unique Author index lists the names, according to the alphabet, with superscripts which refer to the ordinal number in References.