Many Worlds in One: The Search for Other Universes
| Date: 21 April 2011, 06:12
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Recent discoveries in cosmology have led to a bizarre new worldview that (to paraphrase Niels Bohr) may be crazy enough to be true. Just consider the litany of mind-boggling new ideas being bandied about lately: the acceleration of cosmic expansion, dark energy (on top of dark matter, yet!), primordial “ripples” in space-time, the quantum creation of the universe from nothing, eternal cosmic inflation, multiple universes . . .Sound crazy enough for you?
Fortunately, the new theoretical advances also lead to testable predictions, and we may soon witness the confirmation of some of these predictions by fresh astronomical findings. Alex Vilenkin’s own scientific work has been closely tied to the emergence of the new worldview, from the original ideas to the most recent developments. In Many Worlds in One, he gives an exciting, surprisingly entertaining firsthand account of the birth of the new cosmology, and its fascinating—and at times disturbing—implications.
Summary: The universe, from solid physics to educated speculation.
Rating: 5
This is an excellent concise exposition of the current state of theoretical cosmology, particularly the ideas and variations of the inflationary universe scenario. The physics is described well, though necessarily without any technical detail. This field spills over onto both sides of the (somewhat murky) divide between the empirically verifiable and the wildly speculative, and happily Vilenkin does a decent job of telling you which side he's on throughout the book. The last parts are the most speculative, though perhaps the most interesting from a philosophical perspective. He gives a good description of his "tunneling from nothing" (or "vacuum genesis") view of the origin of the universe and contrasts it with the competing no-boundary proposal of Hartle and Hawking (or "quantum genesis," for which see Hawking's _A Brief History of Time_). The book also contains entertaining anecdotes about Vilenkin's experiences with other physicists, for example his trips to the Catalan region of Spain to discuss cosmic recurrences with Jaume Garriga. Overall we get a sense of Vilenkin's playful and wide-ranging imagination as well as his passion for understanding our universe.
Summary: a mind stretcher for the adventurous thinker
Rating: 5
The idea of multiple co-existijngn universes is one of those recent concepts like string theory that leave room for endless speculation and alot of intellectual fun. This volume is a fine survey of the latest thought right or wong and is a good introduction to what is going on in this area. Read it and philosophize at will.
Summary: Here we are again...
Rating: 5
Great reading, indeed! Very entertaining. Mathematical formalism of Mr.Vilenkin's theory of quantum tunneling of the universe (or multiverse) from *nothingness* without causation is a good scientific proof that *nothingness* (or better *Nothingness*) has really great sense of humor...
Well, let's label this *Nothingness* Sunyata, or Cosmic Consciousness, and here we are, at Yogacara or Vijnanavada. Aren't we? Principle (law?) of quantum tunneling has to have some dwelling somewhere, so to say... In Nothingness in this case.
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