Phenomenology of the Invisible Universe

Cosmology is operating now on a well established and tightly constraining empirical basis. The relativistic LambdaCDM hot big bang theory is consistent with all the present tests; it has become the benchmark. But the many open issues in this subject make it reasonable to expect that a more accurate cosmology will have more interesting physics in the invisible sector of the universe, and maybe also in the visible part.Comment: Proceedings of 'Invisible Universe International Conference', Paris, June 29- July 3, 200

Discovery of the Hot Big Bang: What happened in 1948

The idea that the universe is filled with the thermal radiation now termed the Cosmic Microwave Background was first discussed in eleven publications in the year 1948. These papers offer a detailed example of the process of development of a new and now very productive line of research, and of the confusion that can attend new ideas. The confusion in this case left a common misunderstanding of the considerations that motivated the idea of the sea of radiation.Comment: A 24-page preprint; version 2 has additions, revisions and corrections to version