Emilio Elizalde Orden de los libros

Focusing on the evolution of cosmology into a scientific discipline, the narrative explores the significant contributions of astronomers and physicists throughout the 20th century. It highlights the transition from mythological explanations of the universe to empirical data interpretation, detailing key figures like Leavitt, Slipher, and Hubble, and their reconciliation of observational findings with Einstein's general relativity. The book illustrates how this collaborative effort culminated in a coherent understanding of the cosmos, marking a pivotal moment in scientific history.

Zeta-function regularization is a powerful method in perturbation theory, and this book is a comprehensive guide for the student of this subject. Everything is explained in detail, in particular the mathematical difficulties and tricky points, and several applications are given to show how the procedure works in practice, for example in the Casimir effect, gravity and string theory, high-temperature phase transition, topological symmetry breaking, and non-commutative spacetime. The formulae, some of which are new, can be directly applied in creating physically meaningful, accurate numerical calculations. The book acts both as a basic introduction and a collection of exercises for those who want to apply this regularization procedure in practice. Thoroughly revised, updated and expanded, this new edition includes novel, explicit formulas on the general quadratic, the Chowla-Selberg series case, an interplay with the Hadamard calculus, and also features a fresh chapter on recent cosmological applications, including the calculation of the vacuum energy fluctuations at large scale in braneworld and other models.