Life of the Cosmos.
Title:
Life of the Cosmos.
Author:
Smolin, Lee.
ISBN:
9780198026792
Personal Author:
Physical Description:
1 online resource (367 pages)
Contents:
Contents -- Prologue/Revolutions -- Introduction -- PART 1 The Crisis in Fundamental Physics -- 1. Light and Life -- 2. The Logic of Atomism -- 3. The Miracle of the Stars -- 4. The Dream of Unification -- 5. The Lessons of String Theory -- PART 2 An Ecology of Space and Time -- 6. Are the Laws of Physics Universal? -- 7. Did the Universe Evolve? -- 8. Detective Work -- 9. The Ecology of the Galaxy -- 10. Games and Galaxies -- PART 3 The Organization of the Cosmos -- 11. What is Life? -- 12. The Cosmology of an Interesting Universe -- 13. The Flower and the Dodecahedron -- 14. Philosophy, Religion, and Cosmology -- 15. Beyond the Anthropic Principle -- PART 4 Einstein's Legacy -- 16. Space and Time in the New Cosmology -- 17. The Road from Newton to Einstein -- 18. The Meaning of Einstein's Theory of Relativity -- 19. The Meaning of the Quantum -- PART 5 Einstein's Revenge -- 20. Cosmology and the Quantum -- 21. A Pluralistic Universe -- 22. The World as a Network of Relations -- 23. The Evolution of Time -- Epilogue/Evolutions -- Appendix: Testing Cosmological Natural Selection -- Notes and Acknowledgments -- Selected Bibliography -- Glossary -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- M -- N -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Y -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Y -- Z.
Abstract:
Lee Smolin offers a new theory of the universe that is at once elegant, comprehensive, and radically different from anything proposed before. Smolin posits that a process of self organization like that of biological evolution shapes the universe, as it develops and eventually reproduces through black holes, each of which may result in a new big bang and a new universe. Natural selection may guide the appearance of the laws of physics, favoring those universes which best reproduce. The result would be a cosmology according to which life is a natural consequence of the fundamental principles on which the universe has been built, and a science that would give us a picture of the universe in which, as the author writes, "the occurrence of novelty, indeed the perpetual birth of novelty, can be understood.". Smolin is one of the leading cosmologists at work today, and he writes with an expertise and force of argument that will command attention throughout the world of physics. But it is the humanity and sharp clarity of his prose that offers access for the layperson to the mind bending space at the forefront of today's physics.
Local Note:
Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2017. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.
Genre:
Electronic Access:
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