The Whole Shebang: A State-of-the-Universe(s) Report

by TimothyFerris (Author)

• New

  Illustrated
  1998

  $25.65

  From the prizewinning author who has been called the greatest science writer in the world comes this delightfully comprehensive and comprehensible report on how science today envisions the universe as a whole. Timothy Ferris provides a clear, elegantly written overview of current research and a forecast of where cosmological theory is likely to go in the twenty-first century. He explores the questions that have occurred to even casual readers -- who are curious about nature on the largest scales: What does it mean to say that the universe is expanding, or that space is curved ? -- and sheds light on the possibility that our universe is only one among many universes, each with its own physical laws and prospects for the emergence of life.

• Used

  Hardcover
  1997

  $4.32

  This is an accessible, non-mathematical guide to all the central issues of cosmology, taking the reader through recent breakthroughs, hypotheses and arguments: the inflationary universe immediately subsequent to the Big Bang; quantum cosmology and Hartle and Hawking's wave-function of the universe; the discovery and significance of large-scale galactic structure; the evolution of the universe(s) and the many-worlds hypothesis of parallel universes; the various anthropic principles; the controversies over the Big Bang and the discovery of the ripples in the microwave background radiatioon; the issues of the existence of other intelligent life-forms; and the possibility of the evidence of life on Mars.