On the Origin of Time
Stephen Hawking's Final Theory
(Sprache: Englisch)
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Stephen Hawking’s closest collaborator offers the intellectual superstar’s final thoughts on the cosmos—a dramatic revision of the theory he put forward in A Brief History of Time.
...
...
lieferbar
versandkostenfrei
Buch (Kartoniert)
18.45 €
Produktdetails
Produktinformationen zu „On the Origin of Time “
Klappentext zu „On the Origin of Time “
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Stephen Hawking’s closest collaborator offers the intellectual superstar’s final thoughts on the cosmos—a dramatic revision of the theory he put forward in A Brief History of Time.“This superbly written book offers insight into an extraordinary individual, the creative process, and the scope and limits of our current understanding of the cosmos.”—Lord Martin Rees
Perhaps the biggest question Stephen Hawking tried to answer in his extraordinary life was how the universe could have created conditions so perfectly hospitable to life. In order to solve this mystery, Hawking studied the big bang origin of the universe, but his early work ran into a crisis when the math predicted many big bangs producing a multiverse—countless different universes, most of which would be far too bizarre to harbor life.
Holed up in the theoretical physics department at Cambridge, Stephen Hawking and his friend and collaborator Thomas Hertog worked on this problem for twenty years, developing a new theory of the cosmos that could account for the emergence of life. Peering into the extreme quantum physics of cosmic holograms and venturing far back in time to our deepest roots, they were startled to find a deeper level of evolution in which the physical laws themselves transform and simplify until particles, forces, and even time itself fades away. This discovery led them to a revolutionary idea: The laws of physics are not set in stone but are born and co-evolve as the universe they govern takes shape. As Hawking’s final days drew near, the two collaborators published their theory, which proposed a radical new Darwinian perspective on the origins of our universe.
On the Origin of Time offers a striking new vision of the universe’s birth that will profoundly transform the way we think about our place in the order of the cosmos and may ultimately prove to
... mehr
be Hawking’s greatest legacy.
... weniger
Lese-Probe zu „On the Origin of Time “
Chapter 1A Paradox
Es könnte sich eine seltsame Analogie ergeben, daß das Okular auch des riesigsten Fernrohrs nicht größer sein darf, als unser Auge.
A curious correlation may emerge in that the eyepiece of even the biggest telescope cannot be larger than the human eye.
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Vermischte Bemerkungen
The late 1990s were the culmination of a golden decade of discovery in cosmology. Long regarded as a realm of unrestrained speculation, cosmology the science that dares to study the origin, evolution, and fate of the universe as a whole was finally coming of age. Scientists all over the world were buzzing with excitement about spectacular observations from sophisticated satellites and Earth-based instruments that were transforming our picture of the universe beyond recognition. It was as if the universe was speaking to us. These developments posed quite a reality check for theoreticians, who were told to rein in their speculation and flesh out the predictions of their models.
In cosmology we discover the past. Cosmologists are time travelers, and telescopes their time machines. When we look into deep space we look back into deep time, because the light from distant stars and galaxies has traveled millions or even billions of years to reach us. Already in 1927 the Belgian priest-astronomer Georges Lemaître predicted that space, when considered over such long periods of time, expands. But it wasn t until the 1990s that advanced telescope technology made it possible to trace the universe s history of expansion.
This history held some surprises. For example, in 1998 astronomers discovered that the stretching of space had begun to speed up around five billion years ago, even though all known forms of matter attract and should therefore slow down the expansion. Since then, physicists have wondered whether this weird cosmic acceleration is driven by Einstein s cosmological constant, an invisible ether-like dark energy that causes
... mehr
gravity to repel rather than to attract. One astronomer quipped that the universe looks like Los Angeles: one-third substance and two-thirds energy.
Obviously, if the universe is expanding now, it must have been more compressed in the past. If you run cosmic history backward as a mathematical exercise, of course you find that all matter would once have been very densely packed together and also very hot, since matter heats up and radiates when it is squeezed together. This primeval state is known as the hot big bang. Astronomical observations since the golden 1990s have pinned down the age of the universe the time elapsed since the big bang to 13.8 billion years, give or take 20 million.
Curious to learn more about the universe s birth, the European Space Agency (ESA) launched a satellite in May 2009 in a bid to complete the most detailed and ambitious scanning of the night sky ever undertaken. The target was an intriguing pattern of flickers in the heat radiation left over from the big bang. Having traveled through the expanding cosmos for 13.8 billion years, the heat from the universe s birth reaching us today is cold: 2.725 K, or about 270 degrees Celsius. Radiation at this temperature lies mainly in the microwave band of the electromagnetic spectrum, so the remnant heat is known as the cosmic microwave background radiation, or CMB radiation.
ESA s efforts to capture the ancient heat culminated in 2013 when a curious speckled image resembling a pointillist painting decorated the front pages of the world s newspapers. This image is reproduced in figure 2, which shows a projection of the entire sky, compiled in exquisite detail from millions of pixels representing the temperature of the relic CMB radiation in different directions in space. Such detailed observations of the CMB radiation provide a
Obviously, if the universe is expanding now, it must have been more compressed in the past. If you run cosmic history backward as a mathematical exercise, of course you find that all matter would once have been very densely packed together and also very hot, since matter heats up and radiates when it is squeezed together. This primeval state is known as the hot big bang. Astronomical observations since the golden 1990s have pinned down the age of the universe the time elapsed since the big bang to 13.8 billion years, give or take 20 million.
Curious to learn more about the universe s birth, the European Space Agency (ESA) launched a satellite in May 2009 in a bid to complete the most detailed and ambitious scanning of the night sky ever undertaken. The target was an intriguing pattern of flickers in the heat radiation left over from the big bang. Having traveled through the expanding cosmos for 13.8 billion years, the heat from the universe s birth reaching us today is cold: 2.725 K, or about 270 degrees Celsius. Radiation at this temperature lies mainly in the microwave band of the electromagnetic spectrum, so the remnant heat is known as the cosmic microwave background radiation, or CMB radiation.
ESA s efforts to capture the ancient heat culminated in 2013 when a curious speckled image resembling a pointillist painting decorated the front pages of the world s newspapers. This image is reproduced in figure 2, which shows a projection of the entire sky, compiled in exquisite detail from millions of pixels representing the temperature of the relic CMB radiation in different directions in space. Such detailed observations of the CMB radiation provide a
... weniger
Autoren-Porträt von Thomas Hertog
Thomas Hertog is an internationally renowned cosmologist who was for many years a close collaborator of the late Stephen Hawking. He received his doctorate from the University of Cambridge and is currently professor of theoretical physics at the University of Leuven, where he studies the quantum nature of the big bang. He lives with his wife and their four children in Bousval, Belgium.
Bibliographische Angaben
- Autor: Thomas Hertog
- 2023, Internationale Ausgabe, 352 Seiten, mit Schwarz-Weiß-Abbildungen, Maße: 15,6 x 23,1 cm, Kartoniert (TB), Englisch
- Verlag: Bantam
- ISBN-10: 0593722620
- ISBN-13: 9780593722626
- Erscheinungsdatum: 08.05.2023
Sprache:
Englisch
Pressezitat
[A] wonderful book about Stephen Hawking's Hawking s biggest legacy . Spectator Truly mind-stretching . . . Immensely immensely rewarding. The Times
Why is our universe the way it is? How did everything begin? How might it end? Thomas Hertog probed these overwhelming questions in collaboration with Stephen Hawking, achieving a privileged perspective into how, struggling against daunting physical odds, Hawking s imprisoned mind yielded astonishing insights even in his later years. This superbly written book offers insight into an extraordinary individual, the creative process generally, and the scope and limits of our current understanding of the cosmos. Lord Martin Rees, Emeritus Professor of Cosmology and Astrophysics, University of Cambridge, and author of Just Six Numbers
Like his mentor and colleague Stephen Hawking, Thomas Hertog has never shied away from being ambitious in theorizing about the universe. This sweeping book provides an accessible overview of both what we know about cosmology and some audacious ideas for moving into the unknown. It is an introduction to Hawking s final theory, but also a glimpse into even grander theories yet to come. Sean Carroll, author of The Biggest Ideas in the Universe: Space, Time, and Motion
Stephen Hawking s final theory is lucidly explained in this splendidly accessible book. Author Thomas Hertog, one of Hawking s closest collaborators, gives us a vivid insight into Hawking as both a brilliant physicist and an astonishingly determined human being. Graham Farmelo, Churchill College, University of Cambridge, and author of The Strangest Man
A beautifully written, thought-provoking account of both the physics and the personalities involved in Hawking s visionary struggle to comprehend the cosmos. Thomas Hertog has provided a fascinating insider s view. Neil Turok, co-author of Endless Universe
Kommentar zu "On the Origin of Time"
0 Gebrauchte Artikel zu „On the Origin of Time“
Zustand | Preis | Porto | Zahlung | Verkäufer | Rating |
---|
Schreiben Sie einen Kommentar zu "On the Origin of Time".
Kommentar verfassen