Abstract
Einstein called his introduction of a cosmological term into his gravitational equations his greatest blunder. Donald Goldsmith, astrophysicist and author of popular books on astronomical topics, starts from there to give a different twist to this survey of cosmology. Several nontechnical books cover basic cosmological topics: historical development, general relativity, discoveries of the extragalactic character of nebulae and their recession, the microwave background, nucleogenesis, inflationary theories, age problems, and dark matter. Goldsmith presents these topics well and gives some insight into the nature of cosmology as a science. The book's novel feature is described in its subtitle: The cosmological constant and other fudge factors in the physics of the universe.