The Infinite Book: A Short Guide to the Boundless, Timeless and Endless - Softcover

Barrow, John D.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0099443724 ISBN 13: 9780099443728

Publisher: Vintage Books, 2006

Synopsis

A Short Guide to the Boundless, Timeless and Endless.

Everything you might want to know about infinity — in history, and all the way to today’s cutting-edge science.
Throughout history, the Infinite has been a dangerous idea. Men have lost their lives, their careers, or their freedom for talking about it. Where did the idea come from, and what is it telling us about the universe? Can there actually be infinities, or is infinity just a label for something that is never reached? Can you do an infinite number of things in a finite amount of time? Is the universe infinite? Will it exist forever?

All manner of paradoxes and fantasies characterize an infinite universe. If our universe is infinite, then an infinite number of exact copies of you are at this very moment reading an identical sentence on an identical planet somewhere else in the universe. So what is it like to live in a universe where nothing is original, where you can live forever, where anything that can be done, is done, over and over again?

These are some of the deep questions that the idea of the infinite pushes us to ask. The Infinite Book will explore these provocative questions and the strange answers that scientists, mathematicians, philosophers and theologians have come up with to deal with its threats to our sanity.

About this title

About the Author

John D. Barrow, a distinguished scientist and popular science author, is Professor of Mathematical Sciences at the University of Cambridge. His best-selling books include Theories of Everything and Impossibility.

Edition details

• Publisher: Vintage Books
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0099443724
• ISBN 13: 9780099443728
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256