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The Left Hand of Creation: The Origin and Evolution of the Expanding Universe
Consider the ghostly neutrino. This elementary, subatomic particle carries with it not only an uncanny reminder of a time eons ago when symmetries were perfect, but also a clue as to how they came to be broken. For every neutrino that now spins to the left, there was once one that spun to
the these parallel twins were destroyed in the "Big Bang," that cosmic apocalypse that, most scientists now agree, created the universe. And this decay of symmetry is reflected in the building blocks of organic life as well. The helical structures of our own genetic material spiral to the
left; no right-turning counterparts exist. The left hand of creation has a long reach indeed, extending from the beginning of time to the miracles of life we witness everyday.
In this provocative and widely praised volume, two internationally acclaimed astronomers show nonspecialist readers how the latest scientific research is helping to solve one of humankind's oldest the origins of the universe. In clear, nontechnical terms, John D. Barrow and Joseph
Silk explain how the physics of elementary particles and the scenarios of cosmology converge in theories that illuminate the beginnings, the evolution, and the possible future of our world and its seemingly infinite neighbors. In the process, they lead us along an amazing path of discovery. We
examine the black body radiation still detectable in space today (once the predominant constituent of the universe, now a cosmic fossil of the primeval fireball), explore the Milky Way (with more stars swirling around its center than people who ever lived on Earth), and find that all we see around
us is inextricably linked to the exceedingly remote past.
As it traces the origins and development of the universe, The Left Hand of Creation asks some compelling questions. What was the beginning of time like? Was it a time of chaos or of smooth transition? Was it unfathomably hot or inconceivably cold? In attempting to answer these and other
questions, Barrow and Silk effortlessly cover the entire spectrum of modern theory, making even the most arcane and difficult accessible to the layperson. They offer succinct, readable accounts of such cutting-edge fields of inquiry as quantum physics, quark theory, particle physics, and astronomy,
to name but a few. And they also introduce us to the scientists whose collective genius made modern cosmological study possible in the first place. There is Edwin Hubble, whose Red Shift Theory proved that the universe is expanding; the eighteenth-century English clergyman John Michell, whose
revolutionary ideas about gravity predicted the discovery of black holes by American physicist John Wheeler some two centuries later; and, of course, the titanic figure of Einstein, whose Theory of Relativity looms behind virtually every breakthrough in modern physics.
A book for anyone who has ever contemplated how the world came to be, or has simply awestruck by a starry sky at night, The Left Hand of Creation offers a treasure trove of insights and explanations.
the these parallel twins were destroyed in the "Big Bang," that cosmic apocalypse that, most scientists now agree, created the universe. And this decay of symmetry is reflected in the building blocks of organic life as well. The helical structures of our own genetic material spiral to the
left; no right-turning counterparts exist. The left hand of creation has a long reach indeed, extending from the beginning of time to the miracles of life we witness everyday.
In this provocative and widely praised volume, two internationally acclaimed astronomers show nonspecialist readers how the latest scientific research is helping to solve one of humankind's oldest the origins of the universe. In clear, nontechnical terms, John D. Barrow and Joseph
Silk explain how the physics of elementary particles and the scenarios of cosmology converge in theories that illuminate the beginnings, the evolution, and the possible future of our world and its seemingly infinite neighbors. In the process, they lead us along an amazing path of discovery. We
examine the black body radiation still detectable in space today (once the predominant constituent of the universe, now a cosmic fossil of the primeval fireball), explore the Milky Way (with more stars swirling around its center than people who ever lived on Earth), and find that all we see around
us is inextricably linked to the exceedingly remote past.
As it traces the origins and development of the universe, The Left Hand of Creation asks some compelling questions. What was the beginning of time like? Was it a time of chaos or of smooth transition? Was it unfathomably hot or inconceivably cold? In attempting to answer these and other
questions, Barrow and Silk effortlessly cover the entire spectrum of modern theory, making even the most arcane and difficult accessible to the layperson. They offer succinct, readable accounts of such cutting-edge fields of inquiry as quantum physics, quark theory, particle physics, and astronomy,
to name but a few. And they also introduce us to the scientists whose collective genius made modern cosmological study possible in the first place. There is Edwin Hubble, whose Red Shift Theory proved that the universe is expanding; the eighteenth-century English clergyman John Michell, whose
revolutionary ideas about gravity predicted the discovery of black holes by American physicist John Wheeler some two centuries later; and, of course, the titanic figure of Einstein, whose Theory of Relativity looms behind virtually every breakthrough in modern physics.
A book for anyone who has ever contemplated how the world came to be, or has simply awestruck by a starry sky at night, The Left Hand of Creation offers a treasure trove of insights and explanations.
- GenresScienceNonfiction
262 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1983
About the author
John D. Barrow
81 books174 followersJohn D. Barrow was a professor of mathematical sciences and director of the Millennium Mathematics Project at Cambridge University and a Fellow of the Royal Society.
He was awarded the 2006 Templeton Prize for "Progress Toward Research or Discoveries about Spiritual Realities" for his "writings about the relationship between life and the universe, and the nature of human understanding [which] have created new perspectives on questions of ultimate concern to science and religion".
He was a member of a United Reformed Church, which he described as teaching "a traditional deistic picture of the universe".
He was awarded the 2006 Templeton Prize for "Progress Toward Research or Discoveries about Spiritual Realities" for his "writings about the relationship between life and the universe, and the nature of human understanding [which] have created new perspectives on questions of ultimate concern to science and religion".
He was a member of a United Reformed Church, which he described as teaching "a traditional deistic picture of the universe".
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
October 6, 2019
Un excelente libro sobre el origen de la vida.
October 24, 2024
IS THE UNIVERSE "FINELY TUNED" FOR INTELLIGENT LIFE?
John David Barrow (born 1952) is an English cosmologist, theoretical physicist, and mathematician, who is Professor of Astronomy at the University of Sussex, England.
They wrote in the Introduction to the new (1993) edition of this book, "in the 1980s cosmology entered a new and exciting phase from which it may never emerge. It became a branch of physics. New ideas about the nature and number of the most elementary particles of matter focused interest upon the behavior of matter and radiation at the highest possible energies and temperatures---higher than any that can be achieved on earth." (Pg. vii) They explain, "Our goal is to unveil the shrouded secrets of the earliest instants of the universe and to elucidate the cosmic connection between the beginnings of the universe and what we observe about us today." (Pg. 26) They continue, "All that we observe around us is linked inextricably to conditions in the exceedingly remote past. That is our theme." (Pg. 28)
They observe, "The steady-state concept of creation ex nihilo blatantly stole an official part of Christian dogma to serve an almost non-Christian goal, but the notion of continuous creation throughout all of space served aptly to counterpoint the opposing theory of a unique creation in the remote past. The battle for a steady-state universe of infinite age and continuous creation was waged in the 1950s and lost in the 1960s." (Pg. 13)
They point out, "There seem to be no rules at all about what could happen near a naked singularity... Despite this microscopic indeterminacy, the gross motion of a large body of air is predictable. Naked singularities might turn out to be no more unpredictable than any other statistical system... This brings us full circle back to cosmology, for there certainly does appear to exist at least one naked singularity: the `big bang.' Our observations of the universe show that it seems to have been highly ordered rather than chaotic. The earth, the stars, and the galaxies are just a few of its outpourings." (Pg. 55-56)
They reject the idea of an oscillating/cyclic universe: "Attractive though this idea is, it is spoilt because, unfortunately, as the oscillations proceed, radiation tends to accumulate. The accompanying increase in pressure tends to make each cycle a little bigger than the last. The expansion will also build up more and more chaotic regularity as the cycles continue. We do not seem to live in a universe that has inherited such an unusual structure from its predecessors, but we really do not have anything but speculation to go on. Suffice it to say that all ideas about bouncing, cyclic universes are likely to remain in the realm of science fiction for some considerable time to come." (Pg. 71-72)
They note, "Now, if baryon number really is a conserved quantity, then the very large baryon number in the universe... must have been built into the `big bang' at the beginning of time. No physical process could have altered its total value subsequently; there has always been an overwhelming preponderance of matter over antimatter, and none of our theories can explain it. It is a created property of the universe." (Pg. 90)
They acknowledge, "Star birth followed by star death, and gradual enrichment of the matter out of which new stars form by enrichment of the matter out of which new stars form by heavier elements. But some of the details of this birth and death process are obscure... We can speculate, but we do not really understand the details of how stars form now in nearby dense interstellar clouds either." (Pg. 151)
They state, "Taken together, all these arguments give us a powerful conviction that there is something very remarkable about the large-scale isotropy and homogeneity of the universe; something that is not explicable by the simple physical processes we already understand, something that is intimately connected with the events that initiated the expansion of the universe. This might seem like bad news for anyone hoping to explain the observed properties of the world by general principles and laws of nature rather than by special starting conditions, which are by definition inaccessible to the scientific method." (Pg. 173)
They critique the idea of "other universes": "If the early pattern of expansion were sufficiently irregular, some regions of the universe could have already collapsed. If one of these collapsed regions is smaller than the horizon size, a black hole would form. If it were larger than the cosmological horizon size at the moment of collapse, a separate closed universe would result. Events within the closed universe would have no influence upon the outside universe and would remain forever unobservable from outside. We could neighbor one, or indeed many, of these separate closed universes. Such worlds would be collapsing by now, since they must have formed long ago and possess a density much greater than our own universe. The domain of space-time occupied by these universes is inaccessible to us. If we were to look towards them, we would think we were observing events at the beginning of our own universe." (Pg. 193)
They explain, "The anthropic principle has a simple message: the universe has many unusual properties that a priori appear extremely unlikely if we consider the whole gamut of possible universes. But is we ask which of those hypothetical, and seemingly more probable universes we could exist in, we invariably discover that the answer is very few indeed. Our astonishment at some of the striking properties of the universe must be tempered by the realization that many of them are necessary prerequisites for the existence of intelligent observers. The simultaneous existence of a whole range of special coincidences of nature, both in the properties of the universal expansion and in the precise values of the fundamental constants that control the strength of the forces of nature, has tempted some to indulge in further metaphysical explanations. Could simultaneous coincidences that allow our existence be telling us that life in some way be NECESSARY in order to make it meaningful?" (Pg. 206-207)
They say, "If we look at the universe today, it appears far from its initial symmetric state. The forces of nature are now all distinct; the diversity of galaxies, stars, and planets has replaced the once smoothly distributed, expanding sea of radiation. How is it that the perfect symmetry of the beginning can be so completely disguised today? The world is no longer completely uniform. On the contrary, it favors matter over antimatter, left over right. Why have the perfect symmetries been breached to create the varied and structured world about us?" (Pg. 222)
They conclude, "Was the cosmos finely tuned to evolve life? The fact that our own universe is unexpectedly hospitable to life is certainly not an inevitable evolutionary effect. The fact that the laws of nature barely, but only barely, allow stable stars to exist with planetary systems today is not a circumstance subject to evolutionary variation. The world either possesses such invariant properties or it does not. A number of independent properties of the universe are so advantageous to the evolution of life that it almost appears designed with our emergence predestined. Could these remarkable `coincidences' be the camouflage of a Grand Designer?" (Pg. 227-228)
This is an interesting, thought-provoking exploration of some of the questions and issues of contemporary cosmology. It will interest many interested in modern cosmology (particularly those sympathetic to the notion of a "Designer").
John David Barrow (born 1952) is an English cosmologist, theoretical physicist, and mathematician, who is Professor of Astronomy at the University of Sussex, England.
They wrote in the Introduction to the new (1993) edition of this book, "in the 1980s cosmology entered a new and exciting phase from which it may never emerge. It became a branch of physics. New ideas about the nature and number of the most elementary particles of matter focused interest upon the behavior of matter and radiation at the highest possible energies and temperatures---higher than any that can be achieved on earth." (Pg. vii) They explain, "Our goal is to unveil the shrouded secrets of the earliest instants of the universe and to elucidate the cosmic connection between the beginnings of the universe and what we observe about us today." (Pg. 26) They continue, "All that we observe around us is linked inextricably to conditions in the exceedingly remote past. That is our theme." (Pg. 28)
They observe, "The steady-state concept of creation ex nihilo blatantly stole an official part of Christian dogma to serve an almost non-Christian goal, but the notion of continuous creation throughout all of space served aptly to counterpoint the opposing theory of a unique creation in the remote past. The battle for a steady-state universe of infinite age and continuous creation was waged in the 1950s and lost in the 1960s." (Pg. 13)
They point out, "There seem to be no rules at all about what could happen near a naked singularity... Despite this microscopic indeterminacy, the gross motion of a large body of air is predictable. Naked singularities might turn out to be no more unpredictable than any other statistical system... This brings us full circle back to cosmology, for there certainly does appear to exist at least one naked singularity: the `big bang.' Our observations of the universe show that it seems to have been highly ordered rather than chaotic. The earth, the stars, and the galaxies are just a few of its outpourings." (Pg. 55-56)
They reject the idea of an oscillating/cyclic universe: "Attractive though this idea is, it is spoilt because, unfortunately, as the oscillations proceed, radiation tends to accumulate. The accompanying increase in pressure tends to make each cycle a little bigger than the last. The expansion will also build up more and more chaotic regularity as the cycles continue. We do not seem to live in a universe that has inherited such an unusual structure from its predecessors, but we really do not have anything but speculation to go on. Suffice it to say that all ideas about bouncing, cyclic universes are likely to remain in the realm of science fiction for some considerable time to come." (Pg. 71-72)
They note, "Now, if baryon number really is a conserved quantity, then the very large baryon number in the universe... must have been built into the `big bang' at the beginning of time. No physical process could have altered its total value subsequently; there has always been an overwhelming preponderance of matter over antimatter, and none of our theories can explain it. It is a created property of the universe." (Pg. 90)
They acknowledge, "Star birth followed by star death, and gradual enrichment of the matter out of which new stars form by enrichment of the matter out of which new stars form by heavier elements. But some of the details of this birth and death process are obscure... We can speculate, but we do not really understand the details of how stars form now in nearby dense interstellar clouds either." (Pg. 151)
They state, "Taken together, all these arguments give us a powerful conviction that there is something very remarkable about the large-scale isotropy and homogeneity of the universe; something that is not explicable by the simple physical processes we already understand, something that is intimately connected with the events that initiated the expansion of the universe. This might seem like bad news for anyone hoping to explain the observed properties of the world by general principles and laws of nature rather than by special starting conditions, which are by definition inaccessible to the scientific method." (Pg. 173)
They critique the idea of "other universes": "If the early pattern of expansion were sufficiently irregular, some regions of the universe could have already collapsed. If one of these collapsed regions is smaller than the horizon size, a black hole would form. If it were larger than the cosmological horizon size at the moment of collapse, a separate closed universe would result. Events within the closed universe would have no influence upon the outside universe and would remain forever unobservable from outside. We could neighbor one, or indeed many, of these separate closed universes. Such worlds would be collapsing by now, since they must have formed long ago and possess a density much greater than our own universe. The domain of space-time occupied by these universes is inaccessible to us. If we were to look towards them, we would think we were observing events at the beginning of our own universe." (Pg. 193)
They explain, "The anthropic principle has a simple message: the universe has many unusual properties that a priori appear extremely unlikely if we consider the whole gamut of possible universes. But is we ask which of those hypothetical, and seemingly more probable universes we could exist in, we invariably discover that the answer is very few indeed. Our astonishment at some of the striking properties of the universe must be tempered by the realization that many of them are necessary prerequisites for the existence of intelligent observers. The simultaneous existence of a whole range of special coincidences of nature, both in the properties of the universal expansion and in the precise values of the fundamental constants that control the strength of the forces of nature, has tempted some to indulge in further metaphysical explanations. Could simultaneous coincidences that allow our existence be telling us that life in some way be NECESSARY in order to make it meaningful?" (Pg. 206-207)
They say, "If we look at the universe today, it appears far from its initial symmetric state. The forces of nature are now all distinct; the diversity of galaxies, stars, and planets has replaced the once smoothly distributed, expanding sea of radiation. How is it that the perfect symmetry of the beginning can be so completely disguised today? The world is no longer completely uniform. On the contrary, it favors matter over antimatter, left over right. Why have the perfect symmetries been breached to create the varied and structured world about us?" (Pg. 222)
They conclude, "Was the cosmos finely tuned to evolve life? The fact that our own universe is unexpectedly hospitable to life is certainly not an inevitable evolutionary effect. The fact that the laws of nature barely, but only barely, allow stable stars to exist with planetary systems today is not a circumstance subject to evolutionary variation. The world either possesses such invariant properties or it does not. A number of independent properties of the universe are so advantageous to the evolution of life that it almost appears designed with our emergence predestined. Could these remarkable `coincidences' be the camouflage of a Grand Designer?" (Pg. 227-228)
This is an interesting, thought-provoking exploration of some of the questions and issues of contemporary cosmology. It will interest many interested in modern cosmology (particularly those sympathetic to the notion of a "Designer").
October 30, 2020
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