This book comprises expository articles on different aspects of gravitation and cosmology that are aimed at graduate students. The topics discussed are of contemporary interest assuming only an elementary introduction to gravitation and cosmology. The presentations are to a certain extent pedagogical in nature, and the material developed is not usually found in sufficient detail in recent textbooks in these areas.

Yogi Berra once said, You can observe a lot just by watching. Michael Cramer has been a keen observer of everyday life encountered as he was walking or driving around town, while working, or watching children at play. He describes life as it is, surrounded by the lives of thousands of others, including interactions as well as observations and sharing the reality to which he is a witness. Poetry is the art of taking pictures with words, and these poems are the pictures Cramer has taken while watching life unfold around him. From the jarring images presented in Holy City to the touching memories and warm, loving thoughts of a father in My Child, Cramer captures the images and emotions that inhabit our lives in Vignettes in Paled Light. My Child How I long to caress your cheek gaze deep into your eyes, into your heart see the memories there of time past the good and the bad, both joyous and sad the sporting events, musical presentations, recitals and reviews. Family memories, time shared wrestling with your siblings, tickling and being tickled the blessing of your giggles, your laughter the heart rending experience of your first tears Every time you cried

Why the force that keeps our feet on the ground holds the key to understanding the nature of time and the origin of the universe. Gravity is the weakest force in the everyday world yet it is the strongest force in the universe. It was the first force to be recognized and described yet it is the least understood. It is a "force" that keeps your feet on the ground yet no such force actually exists. Gravity, to steal the words of Winston Churchill, is "a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma." And penetrating that enigma promises to answer the biggest questions in science: what is space? What is time? What is the universe? And where did it all come from? Award-winning writer Marcus Chown takes us on an unforgettable journey from the recognition of the "force" of gravity in 1666 to the discovery of gravitational waves in 2015. And, as we stand on the brink of a seismic revolution in our worldview, he brings us up to speed on the greatest challenge ever to confront physics.