The Universe : Visions and Perspectives

This volume contains a number of essays by experts in areas of theoretical physics and astrophysics including cosmology, classical and quantum gravity, string theory and relativistic astrophysics.

Preface. 1. Observations and Theory; H. Arp. 2. Ejection from Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxies; H. Arp. 3. Quantum Mechanics of Geometry; A. Ashtekar. 4. Quantum Mechanics and Retrocausality; D. Atkinson. 5. Instantons for Black Hole Pair Production; P.M. Branoff, D.R. Brill. 6. The Origin of Helium and the Other Light Elements; G. Burbidge, F. Hoyle. 7. Superluminal Motion and Gravitational Lensing; S.M. Chitre. 8. Dual Spacetimes, Mach''s Principle and Topological Defect; N. Dadhich. 9. Noncosmological Redshifts of Quasars; P.K. Das. 10. Extragalactic Fire-Works in Gamma-Rays; P.D. Gupta. 11. Instabilities in Optical Cavities of Laser Interferometric Gravitational Wave Detectors; S.V. Dhurandhar. 12. The Epistemology of Cosmology; G.F.R. Ellis. 13. Mathematics and Science; F. Hoyle. 14. Radiation Reaction in Electrodynamics and General Relativity; B.R. Iyer. 15. Gravitational Collapse: The Story so far; P.S. Joshi. 16. Thoughts on Galactic Magnetism; K. Subramanian. 17. The Black Hole in MCG 6-30-15; A. Kembhavi, R. Misra. 18. Inhomogeneous Cosmological Models and Symmetry; S.D. Maharaj. 19. The Black Hole Information Paradox: What Have we Learnt From String Theory? S.D. Mathur. 20. The Counting of Radio Sources: A Personal Perspective; J.V. Narlikar. 21. A Variational Principle for Time of Arrival of Null Geodesics; E.T. Newman, S. Frittelli. 22. Conceptual Issues in Combining General Relativity and Quantum Theory; T. Padmanabhan. 23. Open Inflation in Higher Derivative Theory; B.C. Paul, S. Mukherjee. 24. The Non-Homogeneous and Hierarchical Universe; J.-C. Pecker. 25. Electromagnetic Wave Propagation in General Spacetimes with Curvature and/or Torsion (U4); A.R. Prasanna, S. Mohanty. 26. A Fresh Look at the Singularity Problem; A.K. Raychaudhuri. 27. Probing Beyond the Cosmic Horizon; T. Souradeep. 28. The Kerr-Nut Metric Revisited; P.C. Vaidya, L.K. Patel. 29. Black Holes in Cosmological Backgrounds; C.V. Vishveshwara. 30. Elementary Particle Interactions and Noncommutative Geometry; K.C. Wali. 31. From Interstellar Grains to Panspermia; N.C. Wickramasinghe.