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| View Larger Image | Endless Universe: Beyond the Big Bang
by Paul J. Steinhardt, Neil Turok
| | List Price: | $24.95 | | Price: | $16.47 | | You Save: | $8.48 (34%) |  | | Available: | Usually ships in 24 hours | | | | | Sales Rank: | 82506 | | Studio: | Doubleday | | | Binding: | Hardcover | | Number Of Pages: | 304 | | Publication Date: | May 29, 2007 | | Publisher: | Doubleday |
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EDITORIAL REVIEWS |
Product Description
Two world-renowned scientists present an audacious new vision of the cosmos that “steals the thunder from the Big Bang theory.” —Wall Street Journal
The Big Bang theory—widely regarded as the leading explanation for the origin of the universe—posits that space and time sprang into being about 14 billion years ago in a hot, expanding fireball of nearly infinite density. Over the last three decades the theory has been repeatedly revised to address such issues as how galaxies and stars first formed and why the expansion of the universe is speeding up today. Furthermore, an explanation has yet to be found for what caused the Big Bang in the first place.
In Endless Universe, Paul J. Steinhardt and Neil Turok, both distinguished theoretical physicists, present a bold new cosmology. Steinhardt and Turok “contend that what we think of as the moment of creation was simply part of an infinite cycle of titanic collisions between our universe and a parallel world” (Discover). They recount the remarkable developments in astronomy, particle physics, and superstring theory that form the basis for their groundbreaking “Cyclic Universe” theory. According to this theory, the Big Bang was not the beginning of time but the bridge to a past filled with endlessly repeating cycles of evolution, each accompanied by the creation of new matter and the formation of new galaxies, stars, and planets.
Endless Universe provides answers to longstanding problems with the Big Bang model, while offering a provocative new view of both the past and the future of the cosmos. It is a “theory that could solve the cosmic mystery” (USA Today). |
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 5.0 based on 15 reviews)
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An infinitely old universe? 
The big bang theory of the origin of the universe has been almost unchallenged for about half a century. Once the discovery of cosmic background in 1963 disposed of the steady-state model proposed by Fred Hoyle and Thomas Gold in the 1950s, it was essentially the only game in town. Oscillatory models never entirely went away, but the inflationary model seemed to explain nearly all the data. At the same time it had some flaws that would not go away: it left the first second after the big bang a total mystery; it left the highly homogeneous distribution of matter and energy after the violent beginning unexplained; it seemed to require absurdly precise values for the physical constants (giving apparent support to the "strong anthropic principle", allowing some physicists to claim that the universe must have been designed by an external intelligence so that it could have us living in it); it failed to explain the origin of the "dark energy" driving the expansion; and so on. Any one of these difficulties could probably be explained away in terms of incomplete knowledge and understanding, but taken together they require so many arbitrary assumptions that it becomes hard to escape the conclusion that the big bang universe has become a patchwork of arbitrary assumptions, added ad hoc to cope with a series of problems.
Paul Steinhardt and Neil Turok have developed an alternative way of seeing the universe, in which the big bang was not the beginning but simply a cataclysmic moment in a history of cycles, with no beginning and no end, and in their book they explain all this in terms that are by no means too difficult for the non-physicist to understand. Their model explains everything that the inflationary model explains, but it does so on the basis of fewer and less arbitrary assumptions. It is too soon to feel confident they are right, but if they are right they provide two comforting thoughts for non-physicists: we no longer need to think of time as something that began for unexplained reasons 14 billion years ago, but can return to thinking of it as something that stretches as far back into the past and future as we like to consider, and we don't have to take the strong anthropic principle as a serious argument for an intelligent designer.
This is a book that I enjoyed enormously. If I could give it six stars I would.
July 14, 2008 | |
A Convincing Alternative to Conventional Wisdom
Steinhardt and Turok masterfully outline and simplify their "cyclic model" of the universe in Endless Universe. This book could also serve as an introduction to M Theory, which unifies numerous string theories. Even if you don't buy their theory, you should buy this book because it addresses a number of issues that the traditional big bang theory (or the "inflationary model") fails at answering or explaining. Although the authors' own theory seems a bit far fetched (the first two stages of the model take only a few billion years while the "dark energy" stage takes a trillion), it is a needed rebuttal to the shortcomings of the inflationary model.
March 18, 2008 | |
Great read!
Great read on a great subject and a fast read!
Not only does this book contain a lot of info on the evolution of the universe, it also touches on the exciting ideas of M-theory and "branes", flurting the idea that two, higher dimensional, branes may have collided to create the beginning of our universe. But, as you'll see, it may NOT have been THE beginning as we think of it!!! Unlike some other popular reads, this book is pretty focused on the Big Bang vs. the "Big Splat"... Very interesting for anyone looking for a focused read on THE BEGINNING. Highly recommended. The tone of the book is great and easy to read.
February 18, 2008 | |
Accepting infinity..? 
No matter how long, deep and hard we dwell on existence of the Universe, it is impossible to avoid concept of infinity. What (or Who) is able to be eternal? If this is God, then not Universe. If Universe is such, then there is no need for God. Interestingly authors briefly muse about it in the middle of the book. Saying this and taking theology/philosophy aside I highly appreciate the huge effort taken by both scientists to present their quite stunning, and as for today, extravagant theory - theory challenging inflation. It was easier for me to comprehend Inflationary models (for example in Vilenkin's "Many Worlds in One"). Endless Cycling model is by far the most difficult one, since it is based on String Theory and assumption of extra dimensions. Part of the book evaluates supersymmetry vs. simple string theory in particle physics. Most of the time we read about advantages of Ekpyrotic (Cycling) Universe theory when compared to Inflationary models. Swinging back and forth (in a bit of chaotic and repetitive manner ) authors drill voraciously in systematic fashion all possible holes in the Guth/Linde's Inflationary as well as in Susskind's Landscape and Vilenkin's Multiverses models. And how dedicated, convinced, passionate, determined and eloquent they are!! Though certain fragments are truly exhausting (for example: how colliding branes convert one type of energy to another), numerous repetitions and attempts to emphasize how things happen, are actually often helpful. What has been planted in my head is that: extra "D" + branes + dark energy + potential energy related "spring-like" force between the branes = ekpyrosis. Be it. The final judge deciding which model represents true reality appears to be gravity. Authors list number of proposed and being in progress projects aiming at DETECTING gravitational waves. Unfortunately we will not be able to do so in the next decades, especially if it comes to very weak inflationary waves. However detection is not a single dilemma. We still cannot EXPLAIN the essence of gravity and I did not find anything related to it in this book. Physicists sometimes talk about a concept known as "Mach's Principle", but that principle has never been successfully developed and fails to explain apparent instantaneous action-at-a-distance. In the end comes the last strong punch: Cyclic Ekpyrotic model is free of Anthropic Principle dilemma!! It is very important to cosmology to have competing models and unanswered lingering questions about their validity. In general: very brave and colorful popular science book, recommended for curious and following "strange" cosmology ideas readers.
January 11, 2008 | |
A Challenging Ride Through a New Model of the Universe
Doubtless one of cosmology's greatest mysteries concerns the origins of the universe. What happened at the Big Bang, and how? What precipitated this momentous event? What existed before it, if anything? Was time born at that same instant? Is ours the only universe? Have others existed or exist even now?
Prevailing scientific belief suggests that the universe as we know it began roughly 13 billion years ago with a "point-centered" Big Bang, followed by unimaginably rapid expansion, then enough slowing and cooling to allow the formation of atoms and molecules into planets, stars, and galaxies. In 1997, Lee Smolin's book THE LIFE OF THE COSMOS proposed an alternate theory in which multitudes of universes form at the output ends of black holes, each universe having its own characteristics and unique set of values for its controlling constants. Now, physicists Paul Steinhardt and Neil Turok offer a vastly different theory in THE ENDLESS UNIVERSE.
In a book that challenges its readers' scientific capacity while remaining within a layman's grasp, Steinhardt and Turok eschew the Big Bang singularity for what they term an ekpyrotic or cyclic model. Derived from underlying principles of advanced string theory, they posit our universe as a three-dimensional brane that co-exists with another, mostly parallel brane of more or less equal size. The two branes are separated along an unseen fourth dimension, although the distance of this separation is small and alone among all known physical forces, only gravity can travel this fourth dimension and exert an attractive force between the branes. The authors use this model to posit a trillion-year process in which the branes collide and then separate to their maximum distance apart. During the collision, a birth process for both universes takes place in a manner that looks like the Big Bang. Radiation gradually gives way to matter, allowing stars and galaxies to form, until finally dark matter exerts itself and accelerates the universes' growth and spreads out the galaxies. The branes then become increasingly flat and parallel (as opposed to having been wrinkled but not intersecting as a result of their last collision), allowing the interbrane (gravitational) force between them to begin pulling them back together for another collision.
THE ENDLESS UNIVERSE is loosely divided into three sections. The first section combines a recap of the Big Bang theory and its development during the 20th Century with far less interesting or relevant information about the authors' respective backgrounds, how they met and decided to collaborate, and how their conception of the cyclic model came to pass. Apparently, they failed to see any irony in commingling discussion of the birth of the universe with a full chapter of numbingly trivial personal background and details like, "In August 1981 my wife, Nancy, and I moved with our four-month old baby, Charlie, to Wayne, Pennsylvania, about tweny miles outside of Philadelphia..." Zzzzzzz...Oh, excuse me. What was that baby's name again?
The second section of the book elaborates on the authors' cyclic model, explaining how the branes interact with each other to cause a "big bang" event and how they are influenced by the accelerating expansion of the universe, gravitational effects, and the increasing role of dark matter. Most of the last section of THE ENDLESS UNIVERSE is taken up with discussions of the various technologies being employed to test the Big Bang and cyclic theories. These chapters are some of the most interesting parts of the book, since they offer a fascinating if complicated view of the intersection between cosmological theory and astrophysical oberservation.
Excepting the authors' space-filling personal stories, the bulk of THE ENDLESS UNIVERSE presents an exciting theoretical proposition in one of Science's most exciting fields of theoretical endeavor, the question of what is the universe and where did it come from. Readers will need to make an effort to absorb this material, but they will be rewarded with a fascinating ride through current cosmological thought and experimental efforts at confirmation.
January 03, 2008 | |
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