Brave New Universe: Illuminating the Darkest Secrets of the Cosmos [Hardcover]

Halpern (Author)

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Product Details

Hardcover: 264 pages
Publisher: National Academy Press (Trade); 1 edition (Oct 30 2006)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0309101379
ISBN-13: 978-0309101370
Product Dimensions: 23.7 x 15.8 x 2.6 cm
Shipping Weight: 567 g
Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #448,423 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Product Description

From Publishers Weekly

Halpern and Wesson, both physics professors and authors, give us a history of 20th century cosmology, and how its development was influenced by the concepts of relativity, new technology and the mathematical explanations they engendered. In a brain-twisting tour of time and space, each chapter explores an aspect of contemporary physics and cosmology, including infinity, the accelerating universe, dark matter and the slippery notion of reality. They describe competing models for the geometry of space, including string theory, additional dimensions, and "branes," evaluating each model in terms of observational and experimental data. So far, all these models fail to reproduce the entirety of the known universe; certain aspects of the universe's structure cannot be reproduced by the complex mathematics of cosmologists, and the dense text makes it easy to see why-though not quite so easy to see how. The discussion of Einstein's cosmological constant and the subsequent discovery of universal cosmic background radiation is intriguing, as are chapters describing the mysterious nature of matter and its invisible counterpart, dark matter. General readers may find other passages difficult, like those describing newer efforts to reinvigorate the "steady-state" cosmology of Hoyle and his colleagues. Without a pre-existing knowledge of non-Euclidean geometry, many readers will be frustrated. But for readers with at least one college-level class in physics, this will prove an interesting, illuminating challenge.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Book Description

Cosmologists yearn to behold the unseen elements of our universe. And as new technologies become more powerful and precise, scientists are getting their wish - though these tools are challenging the limits of our imagination as fast as they are answering many longstanding questions. Space is one of the last great frontiers for modern man. A never-ending source of investigation and inspiration, it beckons to scientists with an irresistible siren's call. And in this glorious age of cosmology, astronomical measurement has never been more precise. The power provided to us by extraordinary new observational mechanisms has shattered former suppositions and stimulated exciting new visions of the universe. Using modern instruments such as the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), astronomers now have access to information about the age and composition of the universe. By providing greatly improved answers, high-resolution satellite data and novel telescopic techniques have transformed one of science's most speculative fields into a triumph of meticulous and rigorous detection. Yet as the technological tools grow increasingly robust and we are able to see farther and know more, we find that we have even more questions. Could there be realms beyond ordinary space? Might time, space, and matter simply be illusions? What unique blend of cosmological factors influences life on Earth? Featuring interviews with leaders in the field as well as thought-provoking descriptions of their work, "Brave New Universe" is a guided tour of current advances and controversies in cosmology.

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Amazon.com: 4.0 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)

19 of 22 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Just ok, Jan 12 2007

By Unix Engineer - Published on Amazon.com

This review is from: Brave New Universe: Illuminating the Darkest Secrets of the Cosmos (Hardcover)

As an avid reader of cosmology, super-string theory and the like, I am always up for a good book on any related physics subject. But this book is a little too much rehash of what has already been said in many other books. I was hoping that was only a lead up to a presentation of new theories and discoveries. And I bet the authors thought that is what they were doing.

However ... the two physics professors have missed an important point. The number of hair brain theories in cosmology are legendary. Unless there is math, and/or observation to support the theory in some way, it remains nothing but nonsense. They end with a plethora of such philosophical ideas without presenting any supporting evidence. That is not science.

The preceeding is my main point, but I would also like to give two other criticisms. First, the analogies are really bad and need some work. Secondly, no matter how I tried I could not get certain things out of my head once I had read them. Here is an example: On page 21 it says, "None of us has been to the surface of Pluto or to the bottom of the Marianas trench." I beg your pardon, but the United States Navy bathyscaphe Trieste reached the bottom at 1:06 p.m. on January 23, 1960. That is like saying we didn't land on the moon. No, we haven't been to Pluto - yet.

If what you want is a first book on cosmology and you don't plan on digging into it too deeply and want something pretty light weight I can still recommend this book. If you are looking for the next step forward in an emerging science, this is not it.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars An Excellent Work on Cosmology, Nov 21 2007

By Donald Busky - Published on Amazon.com

This review is from: Brave New Universe: Illuminating the Darkest Secrets of the Cosmos (Hardcover)

Brave New Universe: Illuminating the Darkest Secrets of the Cosmos

I found Paul Halpern and Paul Wesson's work, Brave New Universe, to be an excellent work on cosmology. It is clearly written, engrossing and witty. It tells the story of such pioneers in the field as Hubble, Newton, Einstein, Gamow, Eddington, Kaluza and Klein among others. I especially enjoyed the description of the theories about more than a four dimensional universe, such as M-theory. While the authors cannot answer if there really are more than four dimensions, that is a limitation of the state of physics today, and not of their work. I found the work highly intriguing, and a real page turner. I highly recommend it.

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