| Date: 06 May 2011, 20:17
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James Lidsey deftly steers us along a journey back in time to the very origin of the universe. We are introduced to the fascinating ideas scientists are currently developing to explain what happened in the first billion, billion, billion, billionth of a second--the 'inflationary' epoch. Along the way Lidsey reviews the latest ideas on superstrings, parallel universes, and the ultimate fate of our universe. Lucid analogies, clear and concise prose, and straight-forward language make this book a delight to read.
James E. Lidsey holds a Royal Society University Fellowship at Queen Mary and Westfield College. He has been awarded the Valerie Myerscough Prize in Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy as a doctoral student. He was later honored by the Gravity Research the Fifth Prize and named one of the 100 people most likely to play an influential role over the next decade by the Sunday Times.
Amazon.com
Physics is usually thought of as the "hardest" science--but that really means it's the easiest. Physics is about broad generalities, not billions of specific cases. And astrophysics is about the true universals, those principles ("laws") that operate here and to the edge of the universe, now and since the beginning of time.
James Lidsey, an astrophysicist at the University of London, shows that it's possible to write a clear summary of the current thinking in his field in fewer than 150 pages. The Bigger Bang is a cosmology textbook for the intelligent layperson. Lidsey guides his readers through all the most interesting basics: relativity, where the chemical elements come from, superstring theory, the big bang, inflation, black holes. He writes in a lucid, rather British style that doesn't talk down to his readers, avoiding both excessive math and excessive metaphors. While Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe gives a good feeling for the personalities and vagaries of science, for the excitement and uncertainty at the leading edge, The Bigger Bang is a very clear, straightforward guide to the universe as we think we know it now. --Mary Ellen Curtin.
From Booklist
By now, the theory of how the universe began in a cosmic explosion has entered into the popular understanding. Both the origins of this theory and its latest refinements, however, remain hidden to all but scientific specialists. With simple metaphors glossed with lucid explanations, Lidsey opens to the general reader the darker paradoxes of big bang cosmology. A ball moving from the top of a cowboy hat to the brim, for example, helps illustrate how quantum tunneling might allow a universe to emerge from an energy fluctuation in the void. Similarly, the impossibility of seeing the individual bricks in a distant wall clarifies the difficulty in finding evidence of chaotic inflation very early in the life of the cosmos. Readers terrified of formulas will count Lidsey as a friend as he guides them painlessly through the fundamental assumptions of the big bang--and then beyond, to the riddles (such as thermal equilibrium) that require modification of the original theory. Few exercises stretch the mind more than finding the blueprint for the galaxies in subatomic particles, or contemplating how the black holes in our universe may be giving birth to other, parallel universes. For mathematical rigor, look elsewhere. But for the sheer exhilaration of glimpsing the farthest horizons of science, look no further. Bryce Christensen
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