Description
Ferris provides a lucid, nontechnical overview of current research and a forecast of where cosmological theory is likely to go in the twenty-first century. A master analogist, he presents accessible explanations of relativity and quantum physics, "inflationary" models indicating that the universe is much larger than had been thought, and "string" theories that portray all matter as made of space.
The centerpiece of The Whole Shebang is a visionary account of near-future science, in which light is shed on the possibility that our universe is one among many universes, each with different physical laws and differing prospects for the emergence of life.
The Whole Shebang explores 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"? How could there have been an "origin" of the universe; what happened "before"? Why is quantum uncertainty so puzzling to many scientists, and why do some regard it as one of the most important riddles of all time? Is life an accident, or is the cosmos somehow set up to favor the advent of life?
Written with the literary flair that earned Ferris the accolade "the greatest science writer in the world," The Whole Shebang interweaves probing scientific explication, lyrical descriptions, and finely honed profiles of the lives and personalities of the scientists and philosophers who have contributed to human understanding of the cosmos. Above all, it demonstrates that for all its abstractions, cosmology the scientific study of the universe as a whole is a very human activity whose theories and observations must ultimately answer to the human mind.
ISBN:9780684810201 
