Selected Product:
| Many Worlds in One: The Search for Other Universes
Paperback
Edition: 1st
Author: Alex Vilenkin
Publisher: Hill and Wang
Release Date: 2007-07-10
ISBN-10: 0809067226
ISBN-13: 9780809067220
List Price: $15.00
Average Customer Rating:
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A Leading Figure in the Development of the New Cosmology Explains What It All Means
Among his peers, Alex Vilenkin is regarded as one of the most imaginative and creative cosmologists of our time. His contributions to our current understanding of the universe include a number of novel ideas, two of which—eternal cosmic inflation and the quantum creation of the universe from nothing—have provided a scientific foundation for the possible existence of multiple universes.
With this book—his first for the general reader—Vilenkin joins another select group: the handful of first-rank scientists who are equally adept at explaining their work to nonspecialists. With engaging, well-paced storytelling, a droll sense of humor, and a generous sprinkling of helpful cartoons, he conjures up a bizarre and fascinating new worldview that—to paraphrase Niels Bohr—just might be crazy enough to be true.
A ringside seat at the circus of the bizarre that is modern Cosmology.
| Customer Rating:  | Alex Vilenkin is a real physicist and he's been at the cutting edge of cosmology research so it's no surprise that he has a solid grip on the theoretical underpinnings and major issues and problems facing modern cosmology. What's unexpected is that he is such a fluid and comprehensible author. Dr. Vilenkin writes beautifully - with humor, vision, impeccable organization - and great mercy for the layman. He spares us the math, but gives us a real mental picture of the issues at play. This is a great review and explanation of the modern scientific picture of the creation of the universe.
And what a picture it is. Exotic states of vacuum engendering faster than light expansion; infinities contained in bubbles inside finite spaces; multiverses with endless variations in the laws of physics, most inhospitable to life. We see the history of the subject from Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, and Newton up through Einstein and into the modern period. We get a great view of how Guth's expansion theory resolves a host of problems and suggests, tantalizing, the nature of the stuff that gives birth to our universe (higher energy false vacuums). Much of the resulting weirdness comes about as consequences contingent on expansion. There's a great explication of the cosmological constant and how the recent observational proof of it shatters particle physics independence from the anthropic principle (the notion that our presence here as observers is evidence that must be used to help gauge odds in a scenario of multiverses in which only some outcomes are hospitable to life such as ourselves. I find myself thrilled by these ideas and enthralled that Vilenkin gives me the impression that I'm really following along.
I'd give it an unqualified rave except that I have a major problem with his central thesis that a consequence of our island universe's infinite size is an infinity of parallel worlds and an infinity of identical earths with identical "you"s doing the same things. It's poetic, and certainly shocking and gets the point across that infinity is a really weird concept with very strange consequences. However, his assumption that the quantum fudge factor necessary to his proof of truly duplicate universes can give rise to a truly duplicate earth with duplicate people betrays an empiricist fallacy of particle physics' reductionism: the same particles will not build the same individual life forms because emergent complexity makes liberal use of chaotic recursive phenomena. It's the genotype/phenotype divergence. Even if the all the particles end up in the same places (by pure chance alone like monkeys typing Shakespeare, since there's an infinity of universes, some will bound to have all the particles in the same places) the way these particles code for complex emergent phenomena like life, brains and social structures makes use of chaos' sensitive dependence on initial conditions to yield divergence on the quantum fudge factors alone - in direct contradiction to Dr. Vilenkin's central conclusion.
So - I'm totally down with "Many Worlds in One" as the best explication I've encountered on the history and evolution of the ideas and theories of particle physics as it relates to cosmology. But I'm completely at odds with Vilenkin's central wowser that there's an infinity of each of us in a weird cosmic hall of mirrors because it's an inescapable consequence of infinity. I think that's just too simplistic and reductionist a reading of how particles combine to manifest the complex emergent phenomena all the way up from molecules to life forms and higher levels of reality. The way Vilenkin blithely ignores emergent complexity reflects physicists bias that particles are an ultimate reality completely encapsulating all higher order reality in and of themselves. It's a pretty picture; but it just isn't that easy. Maybe my insistence that the infinities involved in chaos and emergence trump the infinity of universes reflects my own cowardice and bias - but I couldn't help being disappointed that Vilenkin didn't seem to have recognized that issue with that facet of his really cool theory. Ultimately, my issue here is really just a quibble since that aspect is just one in a long series of amazing ideas that get presented here. On the whole, this book is the most stimulating thing you can expose yourself to from a philosophical, spiritual, and intellectual perspective. I might dock it a point because I don't like the pop aspect of the central thesis, but I'd highly recommend it to anyone at all for all the rest of it.
A special note on the Kindle edition: footnotes are rendered with direct links, but end notes are not (forcing you to jump locations manually - annoyingly - if you want to read the end notes). The index is totally lost because of the relative locations - there are no listed page numbers, no live links, no location numbers - nothing - on the index. So if you want to use the index - buy the printed book because the Kindle version has no functioning index. The Kindle edition also has a some spelling errors from the scan, but the pictures are OK and it all works fine otherwise. |
Direct From the Theorists Mouth
| Customer Rating: | | This is an excellent guide to inflation theory, and the doors that it opens up- Multiverse etc. After all if you can't trust Vilenkin, Guth or Linde to to tell you about their theory, who can you trust? What is most important about this theory is that it vindicates Christianity - indirectly of course. |
Modern Cosmology
| Customer Rating: | | An excellent introduction to modern cosmology both from the phenomenological and theoretical perspectives. The clarity of presentation and absence of math makes the book comprehensible to anybody interested in the subject. |
Okay, fairly interesting and easy to read
| Customer Rating: | | I didn't find this book at all difficult to read, even though my physics and math background is fairly rusty. The author clearly explains many concepts in theoretical physics/cosmology that eventually leads him to what I was looking for, a discussion of the multiverse. However, the discussion is at the end of the book and is rather flimsy. The book is more about how theoreticians got there. It's also heavily stacked in the memoir category, with sections of a "who I met" or "where I was" variety. Cute, but not necessary -- probably included in order to make the book seem more for the masses than for scientists or science fans. |
An exciting, accessible guide.
| Customer Rating: | | Among his peers Alex Vilenkin is one of the most imaginative of cosmologists, offering ideas relating to the possibilities of multiple universes. MANY WORLDS IN ONE explains to lay readers these potentials, offering insights into physics advancements and developments and the possible coexistence of other universes. Collections appealing to lay readers in physics and astronomy will find it an exciting, accessible guide. |
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