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25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Best cosmology book in ages!, August 5, 2003
This review is from: Alpha and Omega: The Search for the Beginning and End of the Universe (Hardcover)
This history of modern cosmology is engrossing. The book is clearly, and often eloquently, written and it is up-to-date (till February 2003, the time of going to press). This helps because many important discoveries have taken place recently. It also helps that Seife is a trained mathematician since modern physics is so closely tied to mathematics. So, for example, most popular science books wrongly explain Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, but Seife gets it right. The book is particularly strong in describing various experiments and telescopes, how they work, and how they are expanding our understanding of the universe. On the negative side, the graphics could be much better; often, they help little in illustrating the concepts. There are also some spelling mistakes. Overall, however, I recommend this book highly.
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21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Very convincing, July 25, 2004
This review is from: Alpha and Omega: The Search for the Beginning and End of the Universe (Hardcover)
I am a skeptic. I have a mind of my own, and I like authors who treat the reader with respect. If I wanted religion, I would go to church. I want to be convinced.
In particular, I am very skeptical of the whole big bang idea. I've been exposed to some of the evidence, but it has always seemed relatively scant to me.
No longer. Seife has convinced me. The big bang, basically, probably, did in fact occur.
His deep respect for skeptical scientists, my heroes, runs through the whole book. Seife acknoledges that much of the old evidence was really not overwhelming. When he refers to very recent experiments which disprove moribund but reasonable ideas (some of which have occurred even to laymen like me) he does not criticize the scientists who had held out hope. Actually, he seems to admire the tenacity of the iconoclast.
The icing on the cake is the list of ongoing and future experiments. This section may soon be outdated, but for now it has the effect of including the reader in the scientific pursuit. I am now very excited to learn the results of some of these experiments, though they may be years away.
If you just want to admire the insights, go with Hawking. If you want to dream, try Brian Greene. If you want to be dragged kicking and screaming into the new cosmological era, read this book.
Why only 4 stars? The book becomes less convincing in the final chapters. But it is the best I've found.
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
An excellent effort but with major shortcomings, November 12, 2003
By A Customer
This review is from: Alpha and Omega: The Search for the Beginning and End of the Universe (Hardcover)
Charles Seife's new book on cosmology is strangely paradoxical, a book that should be outstanding but trips itself up on the way to excellence. First off, Seife is without doubt a fabulous science writer, blessed with that rare ability to take seemingly impenetrable concepts and express them in a manageable, interesting, comprehensible way for the lay reader. He has a good command of his subject and an enthusiasm for it that's contagious. Seife discusses cosmological theories ranging from ancient mystical and religious philosophies (like Ptolemy's simple geocentric model) to the data- and mathematics-driven theories of the 20th century. He suggests that we are in the midst of a major revolution in our cosmological worldview comparable to the Copernican Revolution of the 1500s and the Big Bang theory of the early-mid 20th century. He cites the recent (apparent) discovery of an accelerating cosmic expansion as evidence that our understanding of the universe's basic structure is undergoing a major revamp. Seife is at his best when he discusses work on the recalcitrant mysteries of the so-called dark matter and dark energy. Our equations seem to suggest over 90% of the universe's mass and energy consists of something other than the matter and energy that we're acustomed to, the stuff that we can see with our telescopes and fit into easily-defined particle physics models. The so-called "dark matter" doesn't emit light and does not make its presence obvious, while the "dark energy" seems to represent something in the fabric of space that's pushing it outward-but nobody really knows. Seife delves into the latest research on these phenomena and presents some plausible explanations, while shedding light on the most fascinating efforts currently taking place among different groups. Seife's discussion of the gravity-wave phenomenon-and the relentless search to detect such waves, is also eye-opening. For all these assets, Seife's book seems to lapse uncharacteristically in several places. It's beset by a strange dissonance in its tone and what it actually says especially in its later portions. Seife starts out the book (and lines its jacket) crowing about how the biggest mysteries have been solved, how recent work has conclusively answered the most ancient mysteries of cosmology. It obviously hasn't and isn't even close, and Seife himself seems to know this-he talks with fascination about the latest oddities of string theory and their still unknowable implications, moving into the realm of ekpyrotic theory and the mind-stretching ideas about parallel universes. So then why does Seife, in so many places, seem to act as though the big questions (if they can even be posed yet) have cut-and-dry answers? He's able to venture out and contemplate models of the universe that toss out even the most basic notions of time's advance and the structure of matter, yet he winds up falling back on the same old linear, oversimplified assumptions of old. It's a highly disappointing mistake. One could chalk his overexuberance up to the hyperbole that draws attention to books, but many other books in this field manage to convey the same level of fascination without falling into the same traps. Seife takes some of the recent discoveries seemingly as established fact when many of them are still under intense debate. He should have delved more into the lingering doubts and questions about the Supernova data and the dark matter work, which would have modestly reduced the "ooh-aah" factor but made the book far more accurate. The book also seems to have been pushed forward a bit too fast in some places, as there are some needless typos and grammatical errors, and the figures are so-so in their utility to the reader. This book still gets my nod, but I'd suggest that it be used as an adjunct to some better books on this topic which do a more solid job of addressing these mysteries while being more measured and balanced in their treatment. Robert Kirshner's "Extravagant Universe" and Tom Siegfried's "Strange Matters" are probably the ones to read first.
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