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Best Books of the Month
Want to know our Editors' picks for the best books of the month? Browse Best Books of the Month, featuring our favorite new books in more than a dozen categories.
‘The Universe: Leading Scientists Explore the Origin, Mysteries, and Future of the Cosmos’ edited by John Brockman is the fourth installment in ‘The Best of Edge’ series, a mix of excellent texts and skillful authors who speak on various scientific aspects of the universe, a book with its 400 pages would be still far too short for the fans of space faction.
In his book Brockman gathered some of the most important author names who wrote about the universe such as Alan Guth, Brian Greene, Paul Steinhardt, Lisa Randall, Lee Smolin, Frank Wilczek and others – a total of 21 essays and interviews which originally appeared on the Edge.org site.
Edge.org for those unfamiliar is the great resource of knowledge in which texts of countless scientists, tech people, philosophers, businessmen and even artists can be found which for the past 18 years are expressing their opinions and share their thoughts with each other and with the overall global audience.
But what is most important to point out, the texts which can be found on Edge.org were not written for a narrow circle of selected people who only can understand them, but in colloquial and easy to understand science language which editor Brockman described as “…those scientist and other thinkers in the empirical world who, through their work and expository writing, are taking the place of the traditional intellectual in rendering visible the deeper meanings of our lives, redefining who and what we are.Read more ›
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful
This collection culled from the online pages of Edge.org has been edited masterfully by John Brockman. While I am not a scientific expert or techno-geek(no offense intended), I am still intrigued by our universe and how it all may have come to be and how things may end up. Written in language that laymen can understand, there is a well-rounded approach to what is presented here. I found myself chatting with friends about things this volume described. We liked the idea of these "big thinkers" from multiple fields getting together to chat and discuss their findings or beliefs like the intellectual salons popular in the late 1800's and early 1900's. This book is not something to sit and read from beginning to end. It is meant to provoke the reader to deeper consideration. I am pretty sure that the other volumes in this series ("Mind", "Culture", and "Thinking") would be as riveting.
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As a compilation of conversations at edge.org, it is evident that contributions to this collection span a decade and a half. To an extent, Brockman indicates this in his introduction but provision of a clear date for the original talk or publication would have been helpful in putting each piece into context. Clearly, omission of dates is a conscious decision which may serve the conversational nature of this book but it only means the keen reader will need to look up publication dates to clarify some points. That said, the collected writings work well thematically to aid understanding of leading issues in science. There is an occasional air of hype and triumphalism amongst some contributors to this kind of collection – this reviewer considers this to be totally merited given the calibre of the contributors whom Brockman attracts, and the importance of celebrating scientific issues and achievements in a society that sometimes overlooks them.
Alan Guth’s ‘A Golden Age of Astronomy’ appropriately presents this golden age through the lens of the inflationary theory. Paul Steinhardt then poses a case for a cyclic universe, pulling a rabbit out of a hat with a neat application of string theory. Guth goes on to contrast these theories, accounting for the universe’s smoothness (stirred with a little complexity) and flatness through the inflationary model, drawing on much evidence and the fudge factors of dark energy and dark matter. Andrei Linde’s conversationally presented discussion on the inflationary model, leading to his eternal chaotic inflation model and anthropic considerations, is a triumph of exposition. His peppering of events over the last few decades and Soviet era science optimistically collates different perspectives in cosmology and is instructive and refreshing.Read more ›
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The major protagonists of recent advance in cosmology have written short essays on how the field has developed over the past two decades. From string theory to constructor theory, inflation, multiverses, and fractals are all covered in this easily accessible primer of modern physics.
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A challenging read, but very interesting for those interested in the theories about the origin of our universe. This book contains almost no math, yet discusses many current theories about the Big Bang.
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An exhilarating exploration of quantum theory and the origin and destiny of the cosmos presented in a collection of highly readable essays by leading physicists arguing their competing views in clear, understandable language. You don't have to be a mathematician or scientist to enjoy and learn from The Universe. If you are seriously interested in the universal questions modern physics is confronting, but have been afraid the complex math and theory would block your effort to learn, then this book is worth your time.
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This item: The Universe: Leading Scientists Explore the Origin, Mysteries, and Future of the Cosmos (Best of Edge Series)
