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Before Time Began: The Big Bang and the Emerging Universe
What is the origin of the universe? What was there before the universe appeared? We are currently witnessing a second Copernican neither our Earth and Sun, nor our galaxy, nor even our universe, are the end of all things. Beyond our world, in an endless multiverse, are innumerable other universes, coming and going, like ours or different.
Fourteen billion years ago, one of the many bubbles constantly appearing and vanishing in the multiverse exploded to form our universe. The energy liberated in the explosion provided the basis for all the matter our universe now contains. But how could this hot, primordial plasma eventually produce the complex structure of our present world? Does not order eventually always lead to disorder, to an increase of entropy? Modern cosmology is beginning to find out how it all came about and where it all might lead. Before Time Began tells that story.
Fourteen billion years ago, one of the many bubbles constantly appearing and vanishing in the multiverse exploded to form our universe. The energy liberated in the explosion provided the basis for all the matter our universe now contains. But how could this hot, primordial plasma eventually produce the complex structure of our present world? Does not order eventually always lead to disorder, to an increase of entropy? Modern cosmology is beginning to find out how it all came about and where it all might lead. Before Time Began tells that story.
172 pages, Hardcover
Published November 21, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
May 4, 2018
Cosmos and emerging realities
In this book, the author discusses as how different horizons, on Earth and in the heavens define our perception of physical reality. This book is not meant to give a systematic presentation of recent developments in cosmology but discusses with an emphasis on emerging realities such as gravity in terms of laws thermodynamics.
Emergent phenomenon contrasts with reductionism. A new outcome such as gravity from space and time is different from spacetime. Two basic approaches have dominated physics and cosmology; the reduction approach to divide and subdivide matter to its most fundamental particles governed by its quantum nature, and building and extensions of quantum particles into stars, galaxies, universe and multiverse according relativistic physics. Thermodynamics is a framework that describes how very large numbers of individual constituent particles behave. Since then, physicists have tried to figure out whether this similarity of relativity and thermodynamics is a formal coincidence or hints of a deeper truth. Because space-time is made of small elements whose collective motion gives rise to the force we call gravity. In this case, gravity would not be a truly fundamental phenomenon, but an emergent one like temperature, pressure, and viscosity. The microscopic constituents of space-time push inwards on matter and this pulls normal matter in by its gravitational attraction. In the thermodynamic formulation of gravity, the entropy is the number of possible microscopic configurations. Entropic gravity, also known as emergent gravity is an entropic force, a force with macro-scale homogeneity but which is subject to quantum-level disorder, and not as a fundamental interaction. This theory is based on string theory, black hole physics, and quantum information theory describes gravity springs from the quantum entanglement of small bits of spacetime information.
Entropy is really about the level of information we need to describe a system. An ordered system (say, marbles evenly spaced in a grid) is easy to describe because the objects have simple relations to each other. On the other hand, a disordered system (marbles randomly scattered) take more information to describe, because there isn’t a simple pattern to them. So, when the second law says that entropy can never decrease, it is to say that the physical information of a system cannot decrease. In other words, information cannot be destroyed.
Considering infinite space, there is a growing acceptance among physicists that we live in multiverse and our existence is a part of space with eternal inflation which is creating billions of parallel universes. According to Stephen Hawking’s last paper, the evidence of the multiverse exists in cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation.
The last chapter, entitled “The Last Veil,” the author presents an interesting discussion of space and time and its cosmic connections. The introductory part of the book briefly discusses the cosmos according to the two major schools of Hindu philosophy, and the Greek natural philosophy. Highly readable and very energizing book.
In this book, the author discusses as how different horizons, on Earth and in the heavens define our perception of physical reality. This book is not meant to give a systematic presentation of recent developments in cosmology but discusses with an emphasis on emerging realities such as gravity in terms of laws thermodynamics.
Emergent phenomenon contrasts with reductionism. A new outcome such as gravity from space and time is different from spacetime. Two basic approaches have dominated physics and cosmology; the reduction approach to divide and subdivide matter to its most fundamental particles governed by its quantum nature, and building and extensions of quantum particles into stars, galaxies, universe and multiverse according relativistic physics. Thermodynamics is a framework that describes how very large numbers of individual constituent particles behave. Since then, physicists have tried to figure out whether this similarity of relativity and thermodynamics is a formal coincidence or hints of a deeper truth. Because space-time is made of small elements whose collective motion gives rise to the force we call gravity. In this case, gravity would not be a truly fundamental phenomenon, but an emergent one like temperature, pressure, and viscosity. The microscopic constituents of space-time push inwards on matter and this pulls normal matter in by its gravitational attraction. In the thermodynamic formulation of gravity, the entropy is the number of possible microscopic configurations. Entropic gravity, also known as emergent gravity is an entropic force, a force with macro-scale homogeneity but which is subject to quantum-level disorder, and not as a fundamental interaction. This theory is based on string theory, black hole physics, and quantum information theory describes gravity springs from the quantum entanglement of small bits of spacetime information.
Entropy is really about the level of information we need to describe a system. An ordered system (say, marbles evenly spaced in a grid) is easy to describe because the objects have simple relations to each other. On the other hand, a disordered system (marbles randomly scattered) take more information to describe, because there isn’t a simple pattern to them. So, when the second law says that entropy can never decrease, it is to say that the physical information of a system cannot decrease. In other words, information cannot be destroyed.
Considering infinite space, there is a growing acceptance among physicists that we live in multiverse and our existence is a part of space with eternal inflation which is creating billions of parallel universes. According to Stephen Hawking’s last paper, the evidence of the multiverse exists in cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation.
The last chapter, entitled “The Last Veil,” the author presents an interesting discussion of space and time and its cosmic connections. The introductory part of the book briefly discusses the cosmos according to the two major schools of Hindu philosophy, and the Greek natural philosophy. Highly readable and very energizing book.
October 20, 2017
This is an odd little book. The aim seems to be to provide more detail about the most widely accepted cosmological theories than we usually get in a popular science title, which to some extent it does - but in a way that, for me, fails the Feynman test (more on that in a moment).
In his introduction, Helmut Satz tell us that not everyone agrees with some of the things he is going to describe, but I'm not sure that's good enough. For example, we are presented with the full current inflation theory as if it were fact, yet it seems to be going through a whole lot of uncertainty at the time of writing. It's fine to present the best accepted theory, but when there is significant concern about it, it's important to at least outline why it has problems and where we go from here.
In content terms, it's hard to fault what Satz covers - it gives us everything from a description of spontaneous symmetry breaking to the Higgs field, all with significantly more detail than you might normally expect. There's plenty too, for example, on nucleosynthesis and the cosmic microwave background. The problem I have with this book is the way this is presented.
There's one trivial issue. I hate the way the book is structured. It treats all the headings as if they were part of the body text. This totally misunderstands the point of headings, which is to provide an indicator of a clear break. What's more, readers don't always read the text of a heading, so end up with disjointed text. It's ironic that a book about the structure of the universe so messes up the structure of a book.
The bigger issue, though, is that Feynman test. The great American physicist Richard Feynman famously made the distinction between knowing something and knowing the name of something. Feynman pointed out that his dad taught him as a kid when looking at birds: 'You can know the name of that bird in all the languages of the world, but when you’re finished, you’ll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird. You’ll only know about humans in different places, and what they call the bird. So let’s look at the bird and see what it’s doing—that’s what counts.'
I got exactly that feeling here - we're told the name of everything but don't get any feel for what's really happening or why it's happening. Take transitions and spontaneous symmetry breaking - there is a good example made using magnetisation (much clearer than some of the analogies I've seen) - but the phenomenon is just described. We get no idea why this is happening. Elsewhere analogies are used, but not necessarily very effectively. In describing the action of the Higgs field we are told it's a bit like the way a snowball gains mass by rolling through snow. But the snow it rolls through is the same material and itself has mass - the snowball is just accreting mass - so as an analogy it provides little benefit.
I don't think this book is a waste of time. It will fill in some gaps for those who only have a conventional popular science view of cosmology and may encourage some to move onto the more mathematical material. But I don't think it really achieves what it sets out to do.
In his introduction, Helmut Satz tell us that not everyone agrees with some of the things he is going to describe, but I'm not sure that's good enough. For example, we are presented with the full current inflation theory as if it were fact, yet it seems to be going through a whole lot of uncertainty at the time of writing. It's fine to present the best accepted theory, but when there is significant concern about it, it's important to at least outline why it has problems and where we go from here.
In content terms, it's hard to fault what Satz covers - it gives us everything from a description of spontaneous symmetry breaking to the Higgs field, all with significantly more detail than you might normally expect. There's plenty too, for example, on nucleosynthesis and the cosmic microwave background. The problem I have with this book is the way this is presented.
There's one trivial issue. I hate the way the book is structured. It treats all the headings as if they were part of the body text. This totally misunderstands the point of headings, which is to provide an indicator of a clear break. What's more, readers don't always read the text of a heading, so end up with disjointed text. It's ironic that a book about the structure of the universe so messes up the structure of a book.
The bigger issue, though, is that Feynman test. The great American physicist Richard Feynman famously made the distinction between knowing something and knowing the name of something. Feynman pointed out that his dad taught him as a kid when looking at birds: 'You can know the name of that bird in all the languages of the world, but when you’re finished, you’ll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird. You’ll only know about humans in different places, and what they call the bird. So let’s look at the bird and see what it’s doing—that’s what counts.'
I got exactly that feeling here - we're told the name of everything but don't get any feel for what's really happening or why it's happening. Take transitions and spontaneous symmetry breaking - there is a good example made using magnetisation (much clearer than some of the analogies I've seen) - but the phenomenon is just described. We get no idea why this is happening. Elsewhere analogies are used, but not necessarily very effectively. In describing the action of the Higgs field we are told it's a bit like the way a snowball gains mass by rolling through snow. But the snow it rolls through is the same material and itself has mass - the snowball is just accreting mass - so as an analogy it provides little benefit.
I don't think this book is a waste of time. It will fill in some gaps for those who only have a conventional popular science view of cosmology and may encourage some to move onto the more mathematical material. But I don't think it really achieves what it sets out to do.
September 2, 2020
A good read to get introduced to concepts of astrophysics. I picked this book (first of many) to be able to understand better the concepts in SciFi reads.
My thoughts:
-Book is not for an absolute beginner, probably. A basic understanding of astrophysics concepts and theories (multiverse, dark matter, Big Bang, Big Crunch, building blocks of atom, background cosmic radiation) will be useful before you start this. While the book explains them, I found that it covers more complex topics (matter and force particles, baryogenesis, nucleosynthesis, creation of light etc) better.
-One might not understand all concepts in the book (I didn't!) and that's okay.
-The writing style is not the best. The author has a good understanding of the concepts but is - in several instances - unable to break it down for the layperson. The tone is more lecture-like than conversational but can still be followed.
- The author borrows from scriptures (Bible, Vedas, Greek texts) to draw analogies between their verses and astrophysics, at times suggesting those scholars got some of it right. I found that intriguing.
-I was hoping to learn more about the concept of time (dilation) and gravitational-lensing, but not much luck there.
Overall a good-to-read for those with interest in this field. Nevertheless, I hope to find different/better books on the topic.
My thoughts:
-Book is not for an absolute beginner, probably. A basic understanding of astrophysics concepts and theories (multiverse, dark matter, Big Bang, Big Crunch, building blocks of atom, background cosmic radiation) will be useful before you start this. While the book explains them, I found that it covers more complex topics (matter and force particles, baryogenesis, nucleosynthesis, creation of light etc) better.
-One might not understand all concepts in the book (I didn't!) and that's okay.
-The writing style is not the best. The author has a good understanding of the concepts but is - in several instances - unable to break it down for the layperson. The tone is more lecture-like than conversational but can still be followed.
- The author borrows from scriptures (Bible, Vedas, Greek texts) to draw analogies between their verses and astrophysics, at times suggesting those scholars got some of it right. I found that intriguing.
-I was hoping to learn more about the concept of time (dilation) and gravitational-lensing, but not much luck there.
Overall a good-to-read for those with interest in this field. Nevertheless, I hope to find different/better books on the topic.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews