Near miss

Igor Novikov almost (but not quite) made the second most important cosmological discovery of the 20th century when he and a colleague missed the “afterglow” of the big bang. His name is common currency to astronomers. But he deserves a wider audience and his Black Holes and the Universe (Canto, £5.95 pbk, ISBN 0 521 55870 0) – a delightful popular book – should see to that.