In this masterfully written and brilliantly informed work, Dr. Rhorne, the Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics at Caltech, leads readers through an elegant, always human, tapestry of interlocking themes, answering the great question: what principles control our universe and why do physicists think they know what they know? Features an introduction by Stephen Hawking.
With the advent of global warming and the nuclear arms race, humans are rapidly approaching a moment of truth. Technologically supreme, they manifest their dreams and nightmares in the real world through science, art, adventures and brutal wars, a paradox symbolized by a candle lighting the dark yet burning away to extinction, as discussed in this book. As these lines are being written, fires are burning on several continents, the Earth’s ice sheets are melting and the oceans are rising, threatening to flood the planet’s coastal zones and river valleys, where civilization arose and humans live and grow food. With the exception of birds like hawks, black kites and fire raptors, humans are the only life form utilizing fire, creating developments they can hardly control. For more than a million years, gathered around campfires during the long nights, mesmerized by the flickering life-like dance of the flames, prehistoric humans acquired imagination, a yearning for omnipotence, premonitions of death, cravings for immortality and conceiving the supernatural. Humans live in realms of perceptions, dreams, myths and legends, in denial of critical facts, waking up for a brief moment to witness a world that is as beautiful as it is cruel. Existentialist philosophy offers a way of coping with the unthinkable. Looking into the future produces fear, an instinctive response that can obsess the human mind and create a conflict between the intuitive reptilian brain and the growing neocortex, with dire consequences. As contrasted with Stapledon’s Last and first Man, where an advanced human species mourns the fate of the Earth, Homo sapiens continues to transfer every extractable molecule of carbon from the Earth to the atmosphere, the lungs of the biosphere, ensuring the demise of the planetary life support system.”
Frederik Pohl was on a streak when this Hugo Award–finalist novel was published in 1980. Now back in print after an absence of nearly a decade, this unique science fiction novel is as fresh and entertaining as ever. The story begins when the hero of Gateway finances an expedition to a distant alien spaceship that may end famine forever. On the ship, the explorers find a human boy, and evidence that reveals a powerful alien civilization is thriving on a transport ship headed right for Earth.... At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
In an age where Silicon Valley dictates what it means to innovate a painless future, knowledge and enjoyment are fertile breeding grounds of political contestation. But it’s not exactly democracy. We are controlled through platforms that turn us into data for the profit of billionaires. Control has become so playful that we carry it in our pockets, as we continue to crave likes and followers. What is to be done? Should the Left continue to cling to the promise of a political Event, patiently waiting for a revolutionary rupture where new possibilities emerge? Is there a way to delineate its horizons amidst the chaos? Through a psychoanalytic interrogation of the intersections of online culture, sexuality, and politics, Bonni Rambatan and Jacob Johanssen explore such horizons at the limits of capitalism. Event Horizon examines how capitalist ideology functions in our current moment, and, more importantly, how it breaks down. With the increasing urgency of formulating a proper Leftist response to the rapidly growing violence that seriously threatens the lives of marginalised communities, this book could not be more timely.
Cate Marvin's brilliant fourth poetry collection exists just outside of calamity. Set between the violent realm of patriarchy and the bright otherworld of female agency and survival, these are poems of pointed humor and quick intellect, radical exposure and (re)vision. At Marvin's table, the knife of domesticity becomes a threat, sharpened and shined. Misogyny pulls the sheets from the bed; motherhood wails from the backseat of the car; our hero is ghosted (abandoned, haunted) by past friends and beloveds. Event Horizon asks, at what point do we disappear into our experiences? How do we come out on the other side?
Crossing the Event Horizon provides evidence that we are, both individually and collectively, hurtling toward an evolutionary event horizon. Using the tools of Jungian psychology, the nature of the singularity is defined by its myriad manifestations emerging from the collective unconscious. These include dreams, motifs and themes found in art, science fiction and fantasy literature and films, religious cults, and the paranormal, especially near-death experiences and UFO encounters. Key aspects of the Singularity Archetype include: "Logos Beheld" (visually comprehended linguistic intent often associated with a collective telepathic network), Homo gestalt (a new species where individuality is conserved but also telepathically networked), and a parallelism between the individual event horizon of death and eschaton (the collective event horizon of the species). Apocalypticism is analyzed as an example of the Singularity Archetype pathologizing. A study of the Heaven's Gate saucer/suicide cult illustrates what can happen when people become possessed by the Singularity Archetype and are driven by it into delusory projections. The Singularity Archetype is viewed apocalyptically by the ego, and as a transcendent evolutionary event by the Self, and the duality of these views is explored in many examples. The evolutionary origins of the ego and its metamorphosis as it approaches the event horizon are explored. Evolutionary theory, which relates to the Singularity Archetype through a number of dynamic paradoxes, is discussed. Many popular books and movies are analyzed as permutations of the Singularity Archetype, including: Avatar, Childhood's End, Village of the Damned, Powder, and 2001: A Space Odyssey.The Singularity Archetype is a primordial image of human evolutionary metamorphosis which emerges from the collective unconscious. How the Archetype Manifests (a Composite Picture)A rupture-of-plane event occurs, usually threatening the survival of the individual and/or species.The event is a shock that disrupts the equilibrium of body/physical world and also individual/collective psyche. It is an ontological shock that will be viewed as the worst thing possible by individual/ collective ego. There is another rupture of plane that may actually be the same rupture as above but seen from a cosmic rather than a personal view. The shock is revealed to be a transcendent evolutionary event. The revelation of the transcendent aspect will often involve spiral motifs and unusual lights. Consciousness and communication metamorphose and with them core aspects---ego, individuality, connection to linear time, corporeality, gender identification, social order, etc.---fundamentally transform. There is a vision or actualization of release from some or all limits of corporeal incarnation and the emergence of "glorified bodies," which have enhanced powers and various degrees of etherialization. More visual and telepathic modes of consciousness and communication emerge, and this is part of a transformation of individuality into "Homo gestalt"---a new species where individual psyches are networked telepathically. The Singularity Archetype may be experienced and even actualized to various degrees by an individual through transcendent and/or anomalous experiences such as near-death experiences (NDEs), UFO/abduction/close encounter experiences, kundalini and psychotropic episodes.As with encounters with all archetypes, individuals and groups attach idiosyncratic material to it, such as particular end dates and scenarios. Another way of defining the Singularity Archetype (in its collective form) is as a resonance, flowing backward through time, of an approaching Singularity at the end of human history. The Singularity Archetype relates to both the evolutionary event horizon of the species and, for the individual, the event horizon of death.
Einstein’s Shadow follows a team of elite scientists on their historic mission to take the first picture of a black hole, putting Einstein’s theory of relativity to its ultimate test and helping to answer our deepest questions about space, time, the origins of the universe, and the nature of reality Photographing a black hole sounds impossible, a contradiction in terms. But Shep Doeleman and a global coalition of scientists are on the cusp of doing just that. With exclusive access to the team, journalist Seth Fletcher spent five years following Shep and an extraordinary cast of characters as they assembled the Event Horizon Telescope, a worldwide network of radio telescopes created to study black holes. He witnessed the team’s struggles, setbacks, and breakthroughs, and, along the way, Fletcher explored the latest thinking on the most profound questions about black holes: Do they represent a limit to our ability to understand reality? Or will they reveal the clues that lead to the long-sought theory of everything? Fletcher transforms astrophysics into something exciting, accessible, and immediate, taking us on an incredible adventure to better understand the complexity of our galaxy, the boundaries of human perception and knowledge, and how the messy endeavor of science really works. Weaving a compelling narrative account of human ingenuity with excursions into cutting-edge science, Einstein’s Shadow is a tale of great minds on a mission to change the way we understand our universe—and our place in it.
In Black Hole Chasers, award-winning investigative journalist Anna Crowley Redding presents the riveting true story of one of the most inspiring scientific breakthroughs of our lifetime—the Event Horizon Telescope team's reveal of the first image of a super massive black hole. In April 2019, the Event Horizon Telescope Team unveiled the first ever image of a super massive black hole. This inspiring scientific breakthrough took years of hard work, innovative thinking, and a level of global cooperation never seen before. The challenge was immense. The goal was impossible. They would need a telescope as big as the earth itself. The technology simply didn’t exist. And yet, a multi-national team of scientists was able to show the world an image of something previously unseeable. Based off extensive research and hours interviews with many of the team's ground-breaking scientist, physicists, and mathematicians, Black Hole Chasers is a story of unique technological innovation and scientific breakthroughs, but more importantly, it's a story of human curiosity and triumph.
