Cosmic Wormholes: 2The Search for Interstellar Shortcuts - Hardcover

Halpern, Paul

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0525934774 ISBN 13: 9780525934776

Publisher: Dutton Adult, 1992

Synopsis

Today such marvels are the stuff of science fiction. But one of the most provocative theories in modern astrophysics suggests that in the future they may well be reality.
In this lively, wondrously accessible book, physics professor Paul Halpern takes us on a fantastic intellectual journey into the world of exotic matter, black holes, white holes, and wormholes - celestial objects that could theoretically bridge distant parts of the universe. With clear and concise explanations and vivid analogies, Cosmic Wormholes illuminates the bold leaps of thought that may someday make travel across the universe as common as a transatlantic flight today. Halpern includes gripping fictional scenarios that depict some of the extraordinary events - including travel to the past and future and the mining of black hole energy - that might be possible if indeed we are able to construct wormholes. He also describes some of the baffling paradoxes inherent in such time travel.
This is fascinating reading for all who follow the leading edge of science as it pushes back the frontiers of human knowledge and expands the limits of human possibility.

About this title

Reviews

Halpern ( Time Journeys ) tackles the No. 1 recreational problem of theoretical physics: actual applications of special relativity to create the possibility of spacetime travel. The "intersteller shortcuts" in the subtitle is an oxymoron in present technical terminology, so Halpern himself is free to travel freely between the ground of astrophysical theory and the speculative time-travel canon. Indeed, he borrows his illustrations from Asimov and Heinlein as often as from Thorne and Morris. The result is more a colorful survey-style lecture script than a coherent theory, sufficient to general readers and certainly inspiring to a science fiction following but without a firm sense of scale of the science involved (and none of the mechanics or mathematics). Halpern's wormholes appear deus ex machina, nearly the last loop of this joyride through astrophysical theory, and somehow one can't help wanting to get back on line. Halpern teaches mathematics and physics at the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Dutton Adult
• Publication date: 1992
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0525934774
• ISBN 13: 9780525934776
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 256