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Title: Before the Beginning by Martin Rees, Martin J. Rees, Stephen Hawking ISBN: 0-201-15142-1 Publisher: Perseus Publishing Pub. Date: 15 January, 1997 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.27 (22 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Cosmology from a big perspective
Comment: This is a book about Cosmology from a big perspective. It takes a view on the very existance of our universe. How it may have come into being and what there may be beyond it in time and space.
Of course, these matters are not the subject of simple experiments but it is remarkable that our understanding of nature allows such speculation.
This book is aimed at a non-technical audience and the overall style is clear and the arguments lucid.
The author starts with an introduction that explains our universe as it has been understood through the main developments of physics in the last one hundred years. The sections on gravitation effects, ranging from stellar collapse to massive black holes missing mass and expansion were presented with great clarity.
However, if you are looking for a book that talks about "Before the Beginning", you may just find yourself wondering why you read the first nine chapters. They are a good, non-technical introduction but they are about our universe from the big bang to the present time.
The last 40% of the book actually contains material hinted at in the title. The author makes the point that our universe is remarkable in the way that it is fit for human life. He then links this observation to the current thinking about the origins of the universe.
Perhaps, our universe is one of many. Very, very many and this one just happens to suit the development of life but there may be many universes "out there" that are still born in the sense that they cannot support life.
Reese explains how space time inflation may lead to universes with different laws of physics and how universes may spawn new universes through the formation of black holes. At the end of this arguement, he talks about the "Anthropomorphic Reasoning" by which we can understand this. These ideas are very speculative and are disputed by many others. Reese achieves a good balance by writing about these disputes.
If you want a book that will give you the current state of the art view of cosmology together with some fascinating speculation about fuuture developments then this is just the job.
I can only level a small number of criticisms at the book. I suspect that most of the target audience will already be familiar with the first 60% of the book so, perhaps, it would have been better to condense that material. The "Further Reading" list at the end just has a collection of titles and authors with no expansion on the contents of these references. Some more information here would be a huge help to readers wondering what to look at next.
Rating: 4
Summary: well written, broad overview of current cosmology
Comment: I purchased this book because of the title, which is, at a minimum, misleading. There is little or nothing in the book discussing the world before the big bang. Nevertheless, this was an interesting and well written book and if it promised no more than it gave, I'd have purchased it anyway.
The more interesting parts concern the collapse of stars, the development of black holes, miniholes and other extremely dense accretions of matter, speculation about dark matter and the possibility of multiple universes. The book gives insight into the relationships of different types of particles and forces and the possible parameters of a unified theory. For the first time, I was able to appreciate (although one must still marvel at it) how the world might have been so small initially and how the universe may have been created from nothing, or something next to nothing. Most interesting to me were passages discussing time and the factors that may give preference to a particular direction in time. The book ends with an unconvincing discussion of anthropic principles, which basically says:" the world is what it is because we are what we are." Personally, I don't think this advances knowledge very much.
Rating: 5
Summary: A Walk Through Cosmology
Comment: Sir Martin Rees earned his degrees in mathematics and astronomy at the University of Cambridge. Currently he is a professor of astronomy and cosmology and was formerly director of the Institute of Astronomy. He sometimes writes articles for Scientific American and New Scientist magazines.
In this book, Before the Beginning, Dr. Rees touches on many topics of cosmology, established theories and highly speculative subjects such as dark matter, multiverse, and superstring theory, . The book , in my opinion, is not watered-down science as one of the reviewers complains. In his introduction, Dr. Rees informs the reader that he will abstain from using references to deity(s) that lead to more copies being sold and complicated physical formulas that decrease profits. One complaint I have is that the book has no glossary section. Although Rees does describe things like quasars, lambda, and omega, white dwarfs, steady-state theory some readers may not be satisfied with the depth of definitions given within the text.
Anyone who picks up this book must read Chapter 12 "Toward Infinity: The Far Future" in which Rees explains the most likely fate of the Solar System. "In about 5 billion years the Sun will die, swelling up into a red giant, engulfing the inner planets, and vaporizing all life on Earth; it will the settle down as a slowly fading white dwarf. At about the same time the Andromeda Galaxy , already falling toward us, will merge with our own Milky Way." He also speculates as to what would happen if the universe expands forever or collapses according the Big Crunch Theory. How life will have to adopt to this new environment...
Overall, the book is a great read for an amateur interested in cosmology. However, those with no prior experience may become stressed understanding some of the concepts laid out in the book.
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Title: Just Six Numbers: The Deep Forces That Shape the Universe by Martin J. Rees ISBN: 0465036732 Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: 08 May, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: The Inflationary Universe: The Quest for a New Theory of Cosmic Origins by Alan H. Guth, Alan P. Lightman ISBN: 0201328402 Publisher: Perseus Publishing Pub. Date: March, 1998 List Price(USD): $18.50 |
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Title: Our Final Hour: A Scientist's Warning: How Terror, Error, and Environmental Disaster Threaten Humankind's Future In This Century--On Earth and Beyond by Martin J. Rees ISBN: 0465068626 Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: 18 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: Our Cosmic Habitat by Martin Rees ISBN: 0691114773 Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr Pub. Date: 03 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: The Fabric of the Cosmos : Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality by Brian Greene ISBN: 0375412883 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 10 February, 2004 List Price(USD): $28.95 |
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