Do you want to learn about the physical origin of the Universe, but don’t have the rest of eternity to read up on it? Do you want to know what scientists know about where you and your planet came from, but without the science blinding you? ‘Course you do – and who better than For Dummies to tackle the biggest, strangest and most wonderful question there is! The Origins of the Universe For Dummies covers: Early ideas about our universe Modern cosmology Big Bang theory Dark matter and gravity Galaxies and solar systems Life on earth Finding life elsewhere The Universe’s forecast
The thesis of this book is to convey a solution to the physical origin of space-time, matter, the fundamental forces, and the mechanism of perception, by identifying a root from which there is a definite pathway to cognizing the underlying geometric cause from which all reality is therefrom based. This work lies between both physics and philosophy, and thus may be regarded in both categories, but more towards philosophy because such a powerful doctrine, which asserts the origin of the universe, is for now incapable of undergoing such definitive experimentation. A philosophy moreover on the framework to construct the correct equation of unification for physics is one major objective of this work; indeed there is constantly present the limited barrier of the mechanism of perception and idea, but, despite this fact, we may, without a doubt, still discover a route in order to make knowable the physical cause of nature. That besides, the doctrines which attempt to falsely represent such origins, namely those which propose to solve matter with more matter or space-time with extra space-time, or those which propose the opposite in that there is only consciousness and perception, all of which thus abandon the manifest quantities which are provided in reality. But in fact there is a new direction to which reason can turn in so far as to integrate what the former and latter propositions failed to do so, and this is to analyze the anatomic brain material as that which subsists exterior to the fabric of space-time, hence causality, and derive the prototypic geometric from which the extracted universe gains its shape and possibility in the first place.
This edition of Science and Creationism summarizes key aspects of several of the most important lines of evidence supporting evolution. It describes some of the positions taken by advocates of creation science and presents an analysis of these claims. This document lays out for a broader audience the case against presenting religious concepts in science classes. The document covers the origin of the universe, Earth, and life; evidence supporting biological evolution; and human evolution. (Contains 31 references.) (CCM)
Evolution of Stars and Stellar Populations is a comprehensive presentation of the theory of stellar evolution and its application to the study of stellar populations in galaxies. Taking a unique approach to the subject, this self-contained text introduces first the theory of stellar evolution in a clear and accessible manner, with particular emphasis placed on explaining the evolution with time of observable stellar properties, such as luminosities and surface chemical abundances. This is followed by a detailed presentation and discussion of a broad range of related techniques, that are widely applied by researchers in the field to investigate the formation and evolution of galaxies. This book will be invaluable for undergraduates and graduate students in astronomy and astrophysics, and will also be of interest to researchers working in the field of Galactic, extragalactic astronomy and cosmology. comprehensive presentation of stellar evolution theory introduces the concept of stellar population and describes "stellar population synthesis" methods to study ages and star formation histories of star clusters and galaxies presents stellar evolution as a tool for investigating the evolution of galaxies and of the universe in general
Lively and authoritative, this survey by a renowned physicist explains the formation of the galaxies and defines the concept of an ever-expanding universe in simple terms. 1961 edition. 40 figures.
This is a provocative account of the astounding new answers to the most basic philosophical question: Where did the universe come from and how will it end?
Does the universe have the character it has because of design? In this collection of essays first presented at a symposium sponsored by the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research and the Royal Society of Canada, seventeen scientists and philosophers re-examine the "Argument by Design" in light of current scientific theories. Scientists in such diverse fields as cosmology, physics, geology, biology, and psychology provide syntheses of the state of their respective disciplines with regard to questions such as the origin or evolution of the universe and of life, the interaction of life and terrestrial environment, and verbal communication in prehumans. Contributions by philosophers cover such areas as arguments for a designer and the question of whether nature's laws and initial conditions could be viewed as "fine tuned" for the production of life. Many of the chapters demonstrate the awe-inspiring success of modern science in explaining the universe in terms of fairly straightforward natural laws, countering those versions of the design argument which try to find evidence of God's activities in the supposed failures of scientific laws to cover various phenomena.
"A riveting tour of the cosmos from one of the brightest minds in astrophysics." —The Washington Post A revolutionary new account of our universe’s creation—and a breathtaking exploration of the landscape from which we sprang—from one of the world’s most celebrated cosmologists What came before the Big Bang, and what exists outside of the universe it created? Until recently, scientists could only guess at what lay past the edge of space-time. However, as pioneering theoretical physicist Laura Mersini-Houghton explains, new scientific tools are now giving us the ability to peer beyond the limits of our universe and to test our theories about what is there. And what we are finding is upending everything we thought we knew about the cosmos and our place in it. Mersini-Houghton is no stranger to boundaries—or to pushing through them. As a child growing up in Communist Albania, she discovered a universe beyond her walled-off world through the study of math and science, and through music. As a female cosmologist in a male-dominated field, she transcended the limits that society and her profession tried to place on her. And as a trailblazing researcher, she helped to revolutionize the study of our universe by revealing that, far from living in a cosmic Albania, with a world that ends at its borders, we are part of a larger family of universes—a multiverse—that holds wonders we are only beginning to unlock. Mersini-Houghton’s groundbreaking research suggests that we sit in a quantum landscape whose peaks and valleys hide a multitude of other universes, and even hold the secret to the origins of existence itself. Recent evidence has revealed the signatures of such sibling universes in our own night sky, confirming Mersini-Houghton’s theoretical work and offering humbling evidence that our universe is just one member of an unending cosmic family. The incredible scientific saga of one woman’s mind-expanding journey through the multiverse, Before the Big Bang will reshape our understanding of humanity’s place in the unfathomable vastness of the cosmos.
Annotation Because his undergraduate course Origins of Life was so popular, and because there is so much discussion of the matter in both religious and scientific realms, biochemist Lurquin thought that the general public might by interested as well in a synopsis and synthesis of the current thinking. So he revised his course notes for lay readers, to demonstrate that the logic of science can be used to make deep sense of the world from the creation of the universe to the creation of life and its diversification. Annotation (c)2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).
Robert Lanza is one of the most respected scientists in the world a US News and World Report cover story called him a genius and a renegade thinker, even likening him to Einstein. Lanza has teamed with Bob Berman, the most widely read astronomer in the world, to produce Biocentrism, a revolutionary new view of the universe. Every now and then a simple yet radical idea shakes the very foundations of knowledge. The startling discovery that the world was not flat challenged and ultimately changed the way people perceived themselves and their relationship with the world. For most humans of the 15th century, the notion of Earth as ball of rock was nonsense. The whole of Western, natural philosophy is undergoing a sea change again, increasingly being forced upon us by the experimental findings of quantum theory, and at the same time, toward doubt and uncertainty in the physical explanations of the universes genesis and structure. Biocentrism completes this shift in worldview, turning the planet upside down again with the revolutionary view that life creates the universe instead of the other way around. In this paradigm, life is not an accidental byproduct of the laws of physics. Biocentrism takes the reader on a seemingly improbable but ultimately inescapable journey through a foreign universe our own from the viewpoints of an acclaimed biologist and a leading astronomer. Switching perspective from physics to biology unlocks the cages in which Western science has unwittingly managed to confine itself. Biocentrism will shatter the readers ideas of life--time and space, and even death. At the same time it will release us from the dull worldview of life being merely the activity of an admixture of carbon and a few other elements; it suggests the exhilarating possibility that life is fundamentally immortal. The 21st century is predicted to be the Century of Biology, a shift from the previous century dominated by physics. It seems fitting, then, to begin the century by turning the universe outside-in and unifying the foundations of science with a simple idea discovered by one of the leading life-scientists of our age. Biocentrism awakens in readers a new sense of possibility, and is full of so many shocking new perspectives that the reader will never see reality the same way again.
