This book delves into the foundations of physics and discusses our capability of describing and interpreting the universe, covering areas which border history and philosophy, such as: cosmology and origin myths, late antiquity and the Middle Ages, the universe after Copernicus, the beginnings of scientific Cosmology, relativity and space-time, the expanding universe, interweaving general relativity and quantum mechanics, missing mass, cosmic radiation, accelerated expansion, cosmological constant and dark energy. The discussion of these topics takes place in a didactic way, combining intuition and rigor, and manifesting the intent to bring out what is still not clear or remains controversial: open problems and unsolved puzzles that inevitably intertwine physics, astrophysics and philosophy.
