Out of this World: Colliding Universes, Branes, Strings, and Other Wild Ideas of Modern Physics - Hardcover

Webb, Stephen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0387029303 ISBN 13: 9780387029306

Publisher: Copernicus, 2004

Synopsis

This book is an attempt to share some of the fascinating and exciting ideas of modern theoretical physics with a non-mathematical audience. I also hope to give some appreciation of the exceptionally creative people who have generated these ideas. I had no intention of writing a comprehen­ sive history of these ideas, however; I apologize to those physicists whose important contributions I may have omitted. Several people have contributed directly to the writing of this book, and I would like to take this chance to thank them. Clive Horwood of Praxis Publishing and Paul Farrell of Copernicus Books have both been supportive of the project. Anna Painter has been an exceptionally thorough editor and has provided invaluable advice. Dr John Mason and Lyman Lyons both offered constructive criticism of an early draft. The errors that remai- and errors and misinterpretations are inevitable in any attempt to explain the subtle ideas of theoretical physics without the aid of mathematics - are my sole responsibility. I would like to thank Ron, Ronnie, Peter, Jackie, Emily, and Abigail for their support. And, most importantly, I would like to thank Heike and Jessica for their patience. Stephen Webb Milton Keynes, April 2004 1X FIGURE CREDITS I would like to acknowledge the following sources and copyright holders for granting permission to use their images. Figure 8 is from the Wilson A. Bentley collection. Figure 14 is courtesy ofNASA.

About this title

About the Author

Stephen Webb works in Learning and Teaching Solutions at the Open University, England, and is the author of WHERE IS EVERYBODY? (Copernicus Books, 2002.)

From the Back Cover

Seeing beyond the Big Bang. . .

Although it is now almost unanimously accepted that the cosmos started with the Big Bang, we still have no plausible theory for the forces that set this creative cataclysm in motion. Some of the most profound questions of modern science arise out of the difficulties scientists have explaining how our Universe was born. What happened, indeed what was, before the Big Bang? During the past few years cosmologists have begun to develop new ideas, sometimes fantastic, that are beginning to shed light on such questions.

In OUT OF THIS WORLD, Stephen Webb examines these amazing recent theories. After introducing general relativity and quantum mechnanics-the twin foundations of twentieth-century physics-he explains how they are fundamentally incompatible. Then, in a series of increasingly astonishing chapters, he introduces us to the seemingly outlandish and bizarre proposals-from almost unbelievably small particles to huge membranes that may envelope the Universe-that physicists have devised to account for this incompatibility, ultimately leading us to wholly new realms of understanding.

Webb makes these strange and wonderful goings-on accessible, engaging, and enjoyable, conveying not just what theorists have begun to believe about the cosmos, but the awe and excitement felt by scientists as this new picture of the Universe slowly emerges.

Reviews

The first law of popular science is that a sense of the discipline can be conveyed without mathematical formalities. A dangerous assumption in any field, it’s especially problematic when applied to the arcana explored in this cursory digest of cutting-edge physics. Webb, author of the well-received Where Is Everybody? Fifty Solutions to the Fermi Paradox and the Problem of Extraterrestrial Life, tackles the most intractable problems of general relativity, quantum mechanics, particle physics, cosmology, string theory, superstring theory, and the shadowy "M-theory" that may lurk behind the others. It’s an ambitious project, which Webb tries to hold together with the unifying theme of symmetry, a concept he feels infuses the truths of science with a "beauty" comparable to the greatest works of art. Unfortunately, we’re not talking Grecian urns here; the symmetries of avant-garde physics are the kind you find in ten- or eleven-dimensional space-time-that is, baffling abstractions that Webb admits are "difficult to describe, and probably impossible to visualize." Physicists themselves can grasp such rarefied ideas only as the outcome of fiendishly difficult mathematics, and Webb can do little more than skate over them in a mixture of opaque jargon and inexact analogy that lay readers will still find incomprehensible after a few chapters. Occasionally an arresting result surfaces, like the notion that the universe might be a hologram, or that there might be a microscopic twin universe that shrinks as ours expands, or possibly a full-sized twin universe offset from ours by a fraction of an inch. But readers who lack the Ph.D-level training needed to make sense of these speculations may find that Webb’s book alternately numbs and boggles the mind without really enlightening it. 143 illustrations.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Copernicus
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0387029303
• ISBN 13: 9780387029306
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 320