From the prizewinning author who has been called "the greatest science writer in the world" comes this delightfully comprehensive and comprehensible report on how science today envisions the universe as a whole.
Timothy Ferris provides a clear, elegantly written overview of current research and a forecast of where cosmological theory is likely to go in the twenty-first century. He explores the questions that have occurred to even casual readers who are curious about nature on the largest scales: What does it mean to say that the universe is "expanding," or that space is "curved"? and sheds light on the possibility that our universe is only one among many universes, each with its own physical laws and prospects for the emergence of life.
Scientists are fond of saying that nature is not only stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine. In this whimsically titled tour de force, Ferris ("Coming of Age in the Milky Way") illustrates that maxim in a vivid and inviting way. He guides his readers through the field of cosmology, where scientists are forced to confront nature at its strangest, yet most profound and fundamental, level. There, physicists envision the universe as a 10-dimensional, ever-expanding entity out of which time and space, energy and matter emerge. It is a field that encompasses theories of the infinitesimally small, the incomprehensibly large and everything in between. Ferris takes us on journeys to black holes, which, though capturing any matter that strays within their "event horizons," are constantly evaporating in a quantum-mechanical haze of "virtual" particles that become tangible. He leads us through our universe, at least 90% of which is made of dark matter, detected only by its gravitational influence. He explores its structure-clusters of galaxies that form bubbles and huge voids hundreds of millions of light years in extent. Is this universe one of many that crystallized in a brief "inflationary" epoch? Is "quantum weirdness" an inescapable description of space-time and matter-energy; or is it a mystery to be unraveled? What are the implications of these discoveries and speculations for philosophy and theology? Ferris touches on all of these, leaving the reader gasping not for more answers but for more questions. BOMC split main selection; QPB and History Book Club alternate selections; Newbridge's Astronomy Book Club and Library of Science main selections.
Categories:
- Science & Math
- Physics
- Cosmology
- Physics
Publisher : Simon & Schuster
Author : Ferris, Timothy
Language : English
Edition : Reprint
Published :1998-07-06
Number Of Pages : 393
Binding : Paperback
ISBN-10 : 0684838613
ISBN-13 : 9780684838618
Item weight : 0.82 lb
Dimensions : 1.65 in x 5.5 in x 8.45 in
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