On the Origin of Time - Stephen Hawking's Final Theory

Informationen zum Autor 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. Klappentext 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 be Hawking’s greatest legacy. Leseprobe Chapter 1 A 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 techno...

Dettagli sul prodotto

• Autori: Thomas Hertog
• Editore: Bantam Books USA
• Lingue: Inglese
• Formato: Tascabile
• Pubblicazione: 11.04.2023
• EAN: 9780593722626
• ISBN: 978-0-593-72262-6
• Pagine: 313
• Dimensioni: 154 mm x 233 mm x 22 mm
• Categoria: Scienze naturali, medicina, informatica, tecnica > Scienze naturali, tematiche generali