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From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time
 
 
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From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time [Hardcover]

Sean Carroll (Author)
3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (60 customer reviews)


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Book Description

January 7, 2010
A rising star in theoretical physics offers his awesome vision of our universe and beyond, all beginning with a simple question: Why does time move forward?

Time moves forward, not backward-everyone knows you can't unscramble an egg. In the hands of one of today's hottest young physicists, that simple fact of breakfast becomes a doorway to understanding the Big Bang, the universe, and other universes, too. In From Eternity to Here, Sean Carroll argues that the arrow of time, pointing resolutely from the past to the future, owes its existence to conditions before the Big Bang itself-a period modern cosmology of which Einstein never dreamed. Increasingly, though, physicists are going out into realms that make the theory of relativity seem like child's play. Carroll's scenario is not only elegant, it's laid out in the same easy-to- understand language that has made his group blog, Cosmic Variance, the most popular physics blog on the Net.

From Eternity to Here uses ideas at the cutting edge of theoretical physics to explore how properties of spacetime before the Big Bang can explain the flow of time we experience in our everyday lives. Carroll suggests that we live in a baby universe, part of a large family of universes in which many of our siblings experience an arrow of time running in the opposite direction. It's an ambitious, fascinating picture of the universe on an ultra-large scale, one that will captivate fans of popular physics blockbusters like Elegant Universe and A Brief History of Time.

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. No one is better equipped to take readers on a rollercoaster ride through time, space, and the origins of the universe than Caltech theoretical physicist Carroll, cofounder of Cosmic Variance, one of the top science blog sites. We're not thinking small here, Carroll announces with glee before launching into his topic. Time is a medium we move through and a way to sequence events. But the Arrow of Time' is also the only feature of the universe with one irreversible direction: time goes forward. This fact plays an important role in the second law of thermodynamics: the entropy (disorderliness) of an isolated system either remains constant or increases with time. This has implications for our understanding of the Big Bang origins of the universe. We may not be able to travel back in time, but we can find ways to peer back across it and see clues to how the universe evolved, thanks to such discoveries as quantum mechanics and relativity theory. Carroll writes with verve and infectious enthusiasm, reminding readers that science is a journey in which getting there is, without question, much of the fun. Illus. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

"Unifying cosmology, thermodynamics, and information science into a refreshingly accessible whole, From Eternity to Here will make you wish time's arrow could fly in reverse, if only so you could once again read the book for the first time."
-Seed Magazine

"Carroll...takes his readers on a fascinating and refreshing trek through every known back alley and cul de sac of quantum mechanics, relativity, cosmology and theoretical physics. The best way to grasp the rich mysteries of our universe is by constantly rereading the best and clearest explanations. Mr. Carroll's From Eternity to Here is certainly one of them."
-Wall Street Journal

"For anyone who ever wondered about the nature of time and how it influences our universe, this book is a must read. It is beautifully written, lucid, and deep."
-Kip Thorne, Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics at Caltech, author of Black Holes and Time Warps

"Sean Carroll's From Eternity to Here provides a wonderfully accessible account of some of the most profound mysteries of modern physics. While you may not agree with all his conclusions, you will find the discussion fascinating, and taken to much deeper levels than is normal in a work of popular science."
-Sir Roger Penrose, University of Oxford, author of The Road to Reality and The EMperor's New Mind


Product Details

  • Hardcover: 448 pages
  • Publisher: Dutton Adult; First Edition edition (January 7, 2010)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0525951334
  • ISBN-13: 978-0525951339
  • Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.5 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
  • Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (60 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #293,725 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I'm a physicist who occasionally writes things. I have a home page at preposterousuniverse.com, and blog at cosmicvariance.com. My main interest these days is in the arrow of time: why the past is different from the future, and its relationship to cosmology. Very early on, our observable universe was in a state of almost perfect order; from there, it is evolving toward a state of almost total chaos. We're caught in the middle, riding the wave of increasing entropy. It's not a bad place to live.

 

Customer Reviews

60 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
3.8 out of 5 stars (60 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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147 of 162 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A captivating read on a deep and difficult topic, January 7, 2010
This review is from: From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time (Hardcover)
The arrow of time is a central issue in fundamental physics, and one that remains an open question even in the age of quantum mechanics and general relativity. It is a tall task even to define the question properly, never mind to explain what some of the proposed resolutions are. Nevertheless, Carroll is one of the best writers of popular science working today, and in this book he tackles the topic beautifully, guiding the reader through the relevant ideas, many of which we all think we have an intuitive feel for, like entropy, and explaining their physical meanings, and how gravity complicates the story.

The book is worth reading for its expert descriptions of the background material alone, but the reader hungry for speculations of how physics at the frontier may provide an understanding of the arrow of time will not be disappointed. Carroll devotes ample space to the concepts of cosmic inflation, the role of quantum mechanics, baby universes, and the setting that string theory may provide for all of this. None of this is settled ground in physics yet, and the author makes that entirely clear. But it hard to read this account and not come away with a tangible sense of the excitement to be found in taking on these most fundamental of problems.
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36 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Time in the eternity of the multiverse, March 21, 2010
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This review is from: From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time (Hardcover)
This is a wonderful book that would merit a second reading to understand it more fully. At a fundamental level physics consists of the Standard Model, General Relativity and the Big Bang Inflationary Model of the universe. However, in this model there is something unexplained and it is the Past Hypothesis, that is that the universe started in a low entropy configuration. However the author speculates that perhaps the Big Bang was neither the beginning of time nor a moment of low entropy, but a moment of lowest entropy and the entropy increases in both directions of time, towards the future of the Big Bang and towards its past (from our point of view). This would be the situation in a single connected universe, although string theory predicts a multiverse.

Trying to elucidate the meaning of time (perhaps "an emergent phenomenon rather than a necessary part of our ultimate description of the world") the author reviews special and general relativity, Boltzmann's entropy, black holes and the controversy about conservation of information, life, quantum mechanics, inflation and the multiverse. Generally speaking the book is written in an accessible style (eggs can be broken and turned into omelettes, but not the other way around to describe the Second Law), but you will need to reread some parts to make the most of it.

In the final chapter Sean Carroll faces the "search for meaning in a preposterous universe". I quote: "We find ourselves, not as a central player in the life of the cosmos, but as a tiny epiphenomenon, flourishing for a brief moment as we ride a wave of increasing entropy...Purpose and meaning are not to be found in the laws of nature, or in the plans of any external agent...it is our job to create them. One of those purposes -among many- stems from our urge to explain the world around us the best we can. If our lives are brief and undirected, at least we can take pride in our mutual courage as we struggle to understand things much greater than ourselves". I think he has a point. It is in our human nature to try to find meaning to things. The universe is meaningless. I agree and I think that Woody Allen would also.
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81 of 95 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Genius for non-geniuses!, January 7, 2010
This review is from: From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time (Hardcover)
I am not a physicist. I majored in English in college. I shouldn't be able to understand this book on any level. But I do. And it's fascinating. Illuminating. And just plain interesting as hell. That's Sean Carroll's greatest achievement in this page-turner about the TIME we live in. If you have any interest at all in getting your head around just what this elusive "time" we all experience is all about, you should read this book.
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