"Prefect Symmetry" The Search For The Beginning Of Time
by Heinz R. Pagels
by Heinz R. Pagels
Perfect Symmetry takes us to the frontier of scientific thinking, to the state of the universe before the big bang and before that to the creation of the universe out of absolutely nothing. Dr. Pagels writes with unmatchable elegance about the complex questions raised by the new physics. Perfect Symmetry presages a times in the near future when physicists will attain total understanding of the origin and nature of the universe and its evolution, thus achieving a new outlook on the creation and existence. Pagels emphasizes the new astronomical discoveries gained through the use of radio telescopes and earth-orbiting satellites. Details on the newest scientific findings give the reader a picture of what the universe really looks like - the stars and their deaths as white dwarfs, neutron stars or black holes; the structure and evolution of galaxies; and quasars and their distribution in space in the form of clusters and superclusters. Heinz Pagels is that rarest of scientist/writers-one who can make comprehensible to the layman the most complex of ideas, synthesize disciplines to create more than an overview, and bridge the gap to make science read like art.
Popular science at its best, this acclaimed classic work describes in stunning detail how cutting-edge discoveries in quantum physics and cosmology are helping to explain the origin and evolution of the universe, of space and time. Perfect Symmetry is an optimistic report about the ongoing synthesis of these two disciplines into a concerted effort to uncover the fundamental laws that not only describe how the stuff that makes up the universe -- matter and energy -- came into existence but also govern the behavior of the smallest and largest things, from subatomic particles to stars, galaxies, and the universe itself. Written by that rarest of scientists -- one who is esteemed by his peers yet capable of making the most complex ideas comprehensible to laymen -- Perfect Symmetry is an enthralling intellectual adventure, science that reads like art. |
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The 4% Universe
by Richard Panek
“Fascinating . . . One of the most important stories in the history of science.”— Washington Post
In recent years, a handful of scientists has been racing to explain a disturbing aspect of our universe: only 4 percent of it consists of the matter that makes up you, me, and every star and planet. The rest is completely unknown. Richard Panek tells the dramatic story of how scientists reached this cosmos-shattering conclusion. In vivid detail, he narrates the quest to find the “dark” matter and an even more bizarre substance called dark energy that make up 96 percent of the universe. This is perhaps the greatest mystery in all of science, and solving it will bring fame, funding, and certainly a Nobel Prize. Based on hundreds of interviews and in-depth, on-site reporting, the book offers an intimate portrait of the bitter rivalries and fruitful collaborations, the eureka moments and blind alleys, that have redefined science and reinvented the universe. “A lively new account of twentieth-century (plus a little twenty-first-century) cosmology . . . The book is as much about how the science got done as about the science itself.”--Salon |
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Cycles of Time
by Roger Penrose
by Roger Penrose
This groundbreaking book presents a new perspective on three of cosmology’s essential questions: What came before the Big Bang? What is the source of order in our universe? And what cosmic future awaits us?
Penrose shows how the expected fate of our ever-accelerating and expanding universe—heat death or ultimate entropy—can actually be reinterpreted as the conditions that will begin a new “Big Bang.” He details the basic principles beneath our universe, explaining various standard and non-standard cosmological models, the fundamental role of the cosmic microwave background, the paramount significance of black holes, and other basic building blocks of contemporary physics. Intellectually thrilling and widely accessible, Cycles of Time is a welcome new contribution to our understanding of the universe from one of our greatest mathematicians and thinkers. |
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Eight Lectures on Theoretical Physics
by Max Planck
by Max Planck
In 1909 the great German physicist and Nobel Prize winner Max Planck (1858–1947) delivered a series of eight lectures at Columbia University giving a fascinating overview of the new state of physics, which he had played a crucial role in bringing about.
The first, third, fifth, and sixth lectures present his account of the revolutionary developments occasioned when he first applied the quantum hypothesis to blackbody radiation. The reader is given a valuable opportunity to witness Planck's thought processes both on the level of philosophical principles as well as their application to physical processes on the microscopic and macroscopic scales. In the second and fourth lectures Planck shows how the new ideas of statistical mechanics transformed the understanding of chemical physics. The seventh lecture discusses the principle of least action, while the final one gives an account of the theory of special relativity, of which Planck had been an early champion. These lectures are especially important since they reflect Planck's reconsiderations and rethinking of his original discovery of quantum theory. A new Introduction by Peter Pesic places this book in historical perspective among Planck's works and those of his contemporaries. Now available in this inexpensive edition, it will be of particular interest to students of modern physics and of the philosophy and history of science. |
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