The book of universes
By: John Barrow
Publisher: Bodley Head
Published: 2011
Place of publication: London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 354
ISBN-13: 9781847920980
Subjects: 39.30 cosmology; Universe; Relativistic approach; Cosmology; Relativistic jets; Relativistic astrophysics; 39.01 history of astronomy; Kosmologie
Description: This is a book about universes. It tells a story that revolves around a single unusual and unappreciated fact: that Albert Einstein's famous theory of relativity describes universes - entire universes. Not many solutions to Einstein's tantalising universe equations have ever been found, but those that have are all remarkable. Some describe universes that expand in size, while others contract; some rotate like a top while others are chaotically unpredictable. Some are perfectly smooth, while others are lumpy. Some permit time travel into the past. Only a few allow life to evolve within them; the rest, if they exist, are destined to remain unknowable to conscious minds. Our story will encounter universes where the laws of physics can change from time to time and from one region to another, universes that have extra hidden dimensions of space and time, universes that are eternal, universes that live inside black holes, universes that end without warning, colliding universes, inflationary universes, and universes that come into being from something else - or from nothing at all. Gradually, we are introduced to the latest and the best descriptions of the Universe as we understand it today, together with the concept of the 'Multiverse' - the universe of all possible universes - that modern theories of physics lead us to contemplate.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Machine generated contents note:; title: 1.; title: Being in the Right Place at the Right Time --; title: Two men walking --; title: Funny things, universes --; title: The importance of place --; title: Aristotle's spherical universe --; title: Ptolemy's `Heath Robinson' universe --; title: Copernican revolutions -- -- 2.; title: The Earnestness of Being Important --; title: Special times and special places --; title: Democratic law --; title: The changing universe --; title: The nebular hypothesis --; title: Life in an Edwardian universe --; title: The decaying universe --; title: Karl Schwarzschild: the man who knew too much -- -- 3.; title: Einstein's Universes --; title: Completing a Copernican vision --; title: Einstein's insight --; title: A digression --; title: The creation of Einstein's universe of motionless matter --; title: The second universe: de Sitter's universe of matterless motion --; title: Friedmann's universes of matter in motion --; title: Lemaitre's universes --; title: The universe of Einstein and de Sitter --; title: Tolman's oscillating universe --; title: Lemaitre and Tolman's kinky universe --; title: Milne's universe (and Newton's universes) -- -- 4.; title: Unexpected Universes: the Rococo Period --; title: Fractal universes --; title: Dr Kasner's universe --; title: Dirac's universe -- where gravity decays --; title: Einstein and Rosen's undulating universe -- -- 5.; title: Something Completely Different --; title: A Swiss-cheese universe --; title: Perturbed universes --; title: Schrodinger's universe --; title: Godel's spinning universe -- -- 6.; title: The Steady Statesmen Come and Go with a Bang --; title: A universe that always was, is and is to come --; title: A table-top universe --; title: The electric universe --; title: Hot universes -- -- 7.; title: Universes, Warts and All --; title: Turbulent universes --; title: Distorted universes: from one to nine --; title: Smooth universes and a new observational window --; title: Chaotic universes --; title: Mixmaster universes --; title: Magnetic universes --; title: The universes of Brans and Dicke --; title: Matter-antimatter universes -- -- 8.; title: The Beginning for Beginners --; title: Singular universes --; title: Which universes are singular? --; title: Cold and tepid universes --; title: An unexpectedly simpler universe --; title: And a unified way of thinking -- -- 9.; title: Brave New Worlds --; title: Asymmetric universes --; title: Problem universes --; title: Inflationary universes --; title: Chaotic inflationary universes --; title: Eternal inflationary universes --; title: Suddenly, the universe seems simpler again --; title: The many universes run out of control -- -- 10.; title: Post-Modern Universes --; title: Random universes --; title: Probable universes --; title: Anthropic universes --; title: Possible universes --; title: Home-made universe --; title: Naturally selected universes --; title: Fake universes --; title: Universes where nothing is original --; title: Boltzmann's universe -- -- 11.; title: Fringe Universes --; title: Wrap-around universes --; title: Quantum universes --; title: A self-creating universe --; title: Colliding universes --; title: The dying of the light --; title: Hyperuniverses -- -- 12.; title: The Runaway Universe --; title: The best-buy universe --; title: The preposterous universe --; title: The puzzling universe.