Before the Beginning: Our Universe and Others

Rees, Martin

ISBN 10: 0684816822 / ISBN 13: 9780684816821

Published by Simon & Schuster, 1997

About this Item

8vo (24 cm), VI, 282 pp. Publisher's cloth and dust jacket (paper slightly browned). "In this illuminating work, Sir Martin Rees, Britain's Astronomer Royal and one of the most creative and original of contemporary scientists, draws these advances together with up-to-the-minute research on black holes, dark matter, and nucleosynthesis of the elements. He also sheds light on some of the personalities behind the science, offering first-hand impressions of Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, Stephen Hawking, John Archibald Wheeler, and Fred Hoyle, among others.With stunning clarity, Professor Rees argues that a family--even an infinity--of universes may have been created, each by its own big bang, and each acquiring a distinctive imprint and its own laws of physics." (from the publisher's description).

Seller Inventory # 007308

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Before the Beginning: Our Universe and Others
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Publication Date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0684816822
• ISBN 13: 9780684816821
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: As New
• Seller catalogs:
  • Science
  • Astronomy
  • Physics

About this title

Synopsis

nd its place within a grander scheme, one of the most creative and original of contemporary scientists draws together recent advances in astrophysics and up-to-the-minute research to cast a piercing light on man's place in the cosmos.

Review

"Although we cannot observe them (and they may be forever inaccessible), other universes are a natural expectation from current cosmology. Moreover, many features of our universe that otherwise seem baffling fall into place once we recognize this." Sir Martin Rees, the British Astronomer Royal, gives a vivid, occasionally acid tour of current astrophysics and cosmology, with insights into scientific politics, such as the enormous increase in the cost of the space telescope because of its association with the Space Shuttle. He also offers keen observations on personalities such as Subrahmayan Chandrasekhar and Isaac Newton, Yakov Zeldovich and Albert Einstein. Joseph Silk calls Before the Beginning "an unusual blend of wit, asperity and cosmology ... a combination of clarity and conciseness."