Download or read book Did Time Begin Will Time End written by Paul H. Frampton and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2010 with total page 117 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although everyone is familiar with the concept of time in everyday life and has probably given thought to the question of how time began, recent scientific developments in this field have not been accessible in a simple understandable form. This book is important as it presents to readers current ideas about the role of time in theoretical cosmology.Recent observational discoveries, especially that the expansion rate of the universe is accelerating, have revolutionized the understanding of the energy content of the universe. This development leads to new possibilities for the beginning and end of cosmological time. This book emphasizes the notion of entropy and describes how it is theoretically possible that the universe may end in a finite time or that time can cycle and never end.Provided here is twenty-first century scientific knowledge, written by one of the world''s most eminent theoretical physicists, that will better enable the public to discuss further the fascinating idea of time. It is ideally suited also for young people considering a career in scientific research.

Download or read book Did Time Begin Will Time End written by Paul H. Frampton and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2010 with total page 117 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Physics.

Download or read book A Universe from Nothing written by Lawrence Maxwell Krauss and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2013 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a provocative account of the astounding new answers to the most basic philosophical question: Where did the universe come from and how will it end?

Download or read book The Big Bang Never Happened written by Eric Lerner and published by Vintage. This book was released on 1992-10-27 with total page 497 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A mesmerizing challenge to orthodox cosmology with powerful implications not only for cosmology itself but also for our notions of time, God, and human nature -- with a new Preface addressing the latest developments in the field. Far-ranging and provocative, The Big Bang Never Happened is more than a critique of one of the primary theories of astronomy -- that the universe appeared out of nothingness in a single cataclysmic explosion ten to twenty billion years ago. Drawing on new discoveries in particle physics and thermodynamics as well as on readings in history and philosophy, Eric J. Lerner confronts the values behind the Big Bang theory: the belief that mathematical formulae are superior to empirical observation; that the universe is finite and decaying; and that it could only come into being through some outside force. With inspiring boldness and scientific rigor, he offers a brilliantly orchestrated argument that generates explosive intellectual debate.

Download or read book Mind of God written by P. C. W. Davies and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 1993-03-05 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exploration of whether modern science can provide the key that will unlock all the secrets of existence.

Download or read book Endless Universe written by Paul J. Steinhardt and published by Crown. This book was released on 2007-05-29 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two world-renowned scientists present an audacious new vision of the cosmos that “steals the thunder from the Big Bang theory.” —Wall Street Journal The Big Bang theory—widely regarded as the leading explanation for the origin of the universe—posits that space and time sprang into being about 14 billion years ago in a hot, expanding fireball of nearly infinite density. Over the last three decades the theory has been repeatedly revised to address such issues as how galaxies and stars first formed and why the expansion of the universe is speeding up today. Furthermore, an explanation has yet to be found for what caused the Big Bang in the first place. In Endless Universe, Paul J. Steinhardt and Neil Turok, both distinguished theoretical physicists, present a bold new cosmology. Steinhardt and Turok “contend that what we think of as the moment of creation was simply part of an infinite cycle of titanic collisions between our universe and a parallel world” (Discover). They recount the remarkable developments in astronomy, particle physics, and superstring theory that form the basis for their groundbreaking “Cyclic Universe” theory. According to this theory, the Big Bang was not the beginning of time but the bridge to a past filled with endlessly repeating cycles of evolution, each accompanied by the creation of new matter and the formation of new galaxies, stars, and planets. Endless Universe provides answers to longstanding problems with the Big Bang model, while offering a provocative new view of both the past and the future of the cosmos. It is a “theory that could solve the cosmic mystery” (USA Today).

Download or read book Astronomy Cafe written by Sten F. Odenwald and published by M J F Books. This book was released on 2000-05 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides answers to over three hundred of the most commonly asked questions about astronomy posed to author Sten Odenwold on the "Ask the Astronomer" page of his award-winning Web site "The Astronomy Cafe"; grouped by topic

Download or read book The End of Time written by Julian Barbour and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2001-11-29 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Richard Feynman once quipped that "Time is what happens when nothing else does." But Julian Barbour disagrees: if nothing happened, if nothing changed, then time would stop. For time is nothing but change. It is change that we perceive occurring all around us, not time. Put simply, time does not exist. In this highly provocative volume, Barbour presents the basic evidence for a timeless universe, and shows why we still experience the world as intensely temporal. It is a book that strikes at the heart of modern physics. It casts doubt on Einstein's greatest contribution, the spacetime continuum, but also points to the solution of one of the great paradoxes of modern science, the chasm between classical and quantum physics. Indeed, Barbour argues that the holy grail of physicists--the unification of Einstein's general relativity with quantum mechanics--may well spell the end of time. Barbour writes with remarkable clarity as he ranges from the ancient philosophers Heraclitus and Parmenides, through the giants of science Galileo, Newton, and Einstein, to the work of the contemporary physicists John Wheeler, Roger Penrose, and Steven Hawking. Along the way he treats us to enticing glimpses of some of the mysteries of the universe, and presents intriguing ideas about multiple worlds, time travel, immortality, and, above all, the illusion of motion. The End of Time is a vibrantly written and revolutionary book. It turns our understanding of reality inside-out.

Download or read book About Time written by Adam Frank and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-09-11 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Big Bang is dead and astrophysicist Adam Frank explains how our experience of time will change as a result"--

Download or read book Before the Big Bang written by Brian Clegg and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2009-08-04 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: According to a recent survey, the most popular question about science from the general public was: what came before the Big Bang? We all know on some level what the Big Bang is, but we don't know how it became the accepted theory, or how we might know what came before. In Before the Big Bang, Brian Clegg (the critically acclaimed author of Upgrade Me and The God Effect) explores the history of this remarkable concept. From the earliest creation myths, through Hershel's realization that the Milky Way was one of many galaxies, to on-going debates about Black Holes, this is an incredible look at the origins of the universe and the many theories that led to the acceptance of the Big Bang. But in classic scientist fashion Clegg challenges the notion of the "Big Bang" itself, and raises the deep philosophical question of why we might want to rethink the origin of the universe. This is popular science at its best, exploratory, controversial, and utterly engrossing.

Download or read book Cycles of Time written by Roger Penrose and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2011-09-06 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Nobel prize-winner Roger Penrose, this groundbreaking book is for anyone "who is interested in the world, how it works, and how it got here" (New York Journal of Books). Penrose 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? He 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.

Download or read book Theologies of Creation written by Thomas Jay Oord and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-10-02 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Humans have long wondered about the origin of the universe. And such questions are especially alive today as physicists offer metaphysical theories to account for the emergence of creation. Theists have attributed the universe’s origin to divine activity, and many have said God created something from absolute nothingness. The venerable doctrine of creatio ex nihilo especially emphasizes God’s initial creating activity. Some contributors to this book explore new reasons creatio ex nihilo should continue to be embraced today. But other contributors question the viability of creation from nothing and offer alternative initial creation options in its place. These new alternatives explore a variety of options in light of recent scientific work, new biblical scholarship, and both new and old theological traditions.

Download or read book Worlds without End written by Mary-Jane Rubenstein and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2014-01-28 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A religion professor elucidates the theory of the multiverse, its history, and its reception in science, philosophy, religion, and literature. Multiverse cosmologies imagine our universe as just one of a vast number of others. Beginning with ancient Atomist and Stoic philosophies, Mary-Jane Rubenstein links contemporary models of the multiverse to their forerunners and explores the reasons for their recent appearance. One concerns the so-called fine-tuning of the universe: nature's constants are so delicately calibrated that it seems they have been set just right to allow life to emerge. For some thinkers, these "fine-tunings" are evidence of the existence of God; for others, however, and for most physicists, "God" is an insufficient scientific explanation. Hence the multiverse’s allure: if all possible worlds exist somewhere, then like monkeys hammering out Shakespeare, one universe is bound to be suitable for life. Of course, this hypothesis replaces God with an equally baffling article of faith: the existence of universes beyond, before, or after our own, eternally generated yet forever inaccessible to observation or experiment. In their very efforts to sidestep metaphysics, theoretical physicists propose multiverse scenarios that collide with it and even produce counter-theological narratives. Far from invalidating multiverse hypotheses, Rubenstein argues, this interdisciplinary collision actually secures their scientific viability. We may therefore be witnessing a radical reconfiguration of physics, philosophy, and religion in the modern turn to the multiverse. “Rubenstein’s witty, thought-provoking history of philosophy and physics leaves one in awe of just how close Thomas Aquinas and American physicist Steven Weinberg are in spirit as they seek ultimate answers.”—Publishers Weekly “A fun, mind-stretching read, clear and enlightening.”—San Francisco Book Review

Download or read book The End of Everything written by Katie Mack and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-05-04 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mack looks at five ways the universe could end, and the lessons each scenario reveals about the most important concepts in cosmology. --From publisher description.

Download or read book Beyond the Galaxy written by Ethan Siegel and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2015-11-26 with total page 387 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A look up at the night sky reveals a treasury of wonders. Even to the naked eye, the Moon, stars, planets, the Milky Way and even a few star clusters and nebulae illuminate the heavens. For millennia, humans struggled to make sense of what's out there in the Universe, from all we can see to that which lies beyond the limits of even our most powerful telescopes. Beyond the Galaxy traces our journey from an ancient, Earth-centered Universe all the way to our modern, 21st century understanding of the cosmos. Touching on not only what we know but also how we know it, Ethan Siegel takes us to the very frontiers of modern astrophysics and cosmology, from the birth of our Universe to its ultimate fate, and everything in between."--

Download or read book History Of Particle Theory Between Darwin And Shakespeare written by Paul H Frampton and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2020-08-24 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: History of Particle Theory fills an important gap existing in the literature by discussing the impressive progress in understanding the elementary particles out of which all everyday objects are made. Most of this progress has happened in the last seventy years after the theory of quantum electrodynamics (QED) was perfected as an extremely accurate description of electromagnetic interactions. This astonishing sequence of discoveries was made hand in hand between theory and experiment. This book concentrates only on theory where giant steps were made by a series of exceptionally creative physicists, and this is portrayed as an essential part of the broader spectrum of human knowledge and culture, which is constantly being similarly extended by the creative individuals such as the two mentioned in the subtitle, Between Darwin and Shakespeare, who both significantly changed Western Civilization by ideas in Biology and in English Literature respectively.In the last forty years, the standard model has been confirmed again and again as the correct description of elementary particles up to energies of a thousand times the proton mass. In the discussion of particle theory and theoretical physics in general, the book starts from well over two thousand years ago, going back to the ancient Greeks such as Democritus and Archimedes, until the 17th century, when the extraordinary intellect of Newton changed everything by demonstrating that not only objects in the laboratory but also heavenly bodies are governed by mathematical equations. There followed what can be called Darwinian evolution in theoretical physics, survival of the fittest theories, by loose analogy with the origin of biological species.The present standard model of particle theory surely cannot be the final word because it contains far too many free parameters. The book contains a penultimate chapter discussing a number of such open problems which exist in particle theory. There is then a closing chapter, not related to the rest of the book, providing a series of quotations written in the 16th and 17th centuries by Shakespeare and here applied to particle theory. The inclusion of this is based on our premise that particle theory is just one out of several opportunities for exceptional human creativity.

Download or read book Reason in Revolt written by Alan Woods and published by Wellred Books. This book was released on 2015-12-15 with total page 557 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The achievements of science and technology during the past century are unparalleled in history. They provide the potential for the solution to all the problems faced by the planet, and equally for its total destruction. Allegedly scientific theories are being used to "prove" that criminality is caused, not by social conditions, but by a "criminal gene". Black people are alleged to be disadvantaged, not because of discrimination, but because of their genetic make-up. Of course, such "science" is highly convenient to right-wing politicians intent on ruthlessly cutting welfare. In the field of theoretical physics and cosmology there is a growing tendency towards mysticism. The "Big Bang" theory of the origin of the universe is being used to justify the existence of a Creator, as in the book of Genesis . For the first time in centuries, science appears to lend credence to religious obscurantism. Yet this is only one side of the story.