Alpha and Omega: The Search for the Beginning and End of the Universe - Hardcover

Seife, Charles

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0670031798 ISBN 13: 9780670031795

Publisher: Viking Adult, 2003

Synopsis

Draws on new cosmological discoveries to reveal what today's scientists are learning about the beginning and fate of the universe, citing theories in dark matter, dark energy, and the particle zoo to make predictions on how the universe will end. first printing.

About this title

About the Author

Charles Seife is the author of five previous books, including Proofiness and Zero, which won the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for first nonfiction and was a New York Times notable book. He has written for a wide variety of publications, including The New York Times, Wired, New Scientist, Science, Scientific American, and The Economist. He is a professor of journalism at New York University and lives in New York City.

 

 

Reviews

Did the universe really begin with a bang, and will it end with a whimper? Well-known science journalist Seife gives a comprehensive survey of "theories of everything" from the ancients to the latest discoveries. He explains why some scientists now theorize that the universe may have begun-and may end-with a "big splat," and explains the "ekpyrotic scenario," which says a parallel universe, like a giant membrane, may be floating toward our universe. The recent, highly publicized discovery that the universe is expanding at an ever faster rate seems to support this idea. Another theory of everything that is sure to be encountered more and more frequently in magazines and newspapers is "M-theory," which combines the weird worlds of supersymmetry and string theory. According to supersymmetry, every particle has a twin superpartner endowed with very different properties than familiar subatomic particles. This helps solve the question of where the missing matter in the universe is, since the baryonic particles that we are able to detect make up only 5% of the total. String theory postulates the existence of membranes unimaginably minuscule and curled up in multiple dimensions. Seife also explains how large-scale projects in Louisiana and other sites are aimed at detecting gravity waves, one of the holy grails in science. In an appendix, he lays odds on which scientists look destined to win a Nobel Prize for their discoveries and the areas of research that we will probably see in tomorrow's headlines. In short, Seife provides lucid explanations of very complicated topics for the science buff or well-rounded general reader.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Science journalist Seife's narrative about the fundamentals of cosmology will appeal both to readers basically oblivious to the subject and those who keep up with it--from the grandstands of popular science literature, at least. This dual appeal stems from the author's exceptional clarity and the convulsions-shaking cosmology in recent years. Supernovae hunters who look for the exploding stars to fix the rate of the universe's expansion have been startled to discover that the expansion seems to be accelerating, upending the conventional wisdom that it ought to be decelerating. At the subatomic end of the scale, Seife presents the experiments planned by particle physicists to account for such an unexpected result, which verily demands the existence of an as-yet-undiscovered repelling force. Seife's news about conjectures on the space-time frontier and his solid presentation of established phenomena will fulfill any library's need for a readable introduction to scientific knowledge of the universe's origin and destiny. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Viking Adult
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0670031798
• ISBN 13: 9780670031795
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304