How the Universe Got Its Spots
Subtitle: Diary of a Finite Time in a Finite Space
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: March 11, 2002
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 224
ISBN-13: 9780691096575
Subjects: Geography; Science; Mathematicians; Science/Mathematics; Physics; Astronomy and Cosmology; Mathematics; Science / Physics; Levin, Janna; Correspondence; Cosmology; Popular works; United States
First sentence: Some of the great mathematicians killed themselves.
Description: "In prose, Janna Levin's diary of unsent letters to her mother describes what we know about the shape and extent of the universe, about its beginning and its end. She grants the uninitiated access to the astounding findings of contemporary theoretical physics and makes tangible the contours of space and time - those very real curves along which apples fall and planets orbit." "Levin guides the reader through the observations and thought-experiments that have enabled physicists to begin charting the universe. She introduces the cosmic archaeology that makes sense of the pattern of hot spots left over from the big bang, a pursuit on the verge of discovering the shape of space itself. And she explains the topology and the geometry of the universe now coming into focus - a strange map of space full of black holes, chaotic flows, time warps, and invisible strings. Levin advances the controversial idea that this map is edge-less but finite - that the universe is huge but not unending - a radical revelation that would provide the ultimate twist to the Copernican revolution by locating our precise position in the cosmos."--BOOK JACKET.