The Constants of Nature: The Numbers That Encode the Deepest Secrets of the Universe: Barrow, John: 9781400032259: Amazon.com: Books

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The Constants of Nature: The Numbers That Encode the Deepest Secrets of the Universe Paperback – March 9, 2004

by John Barrow (Author)

58

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Reality as we know it is bound by a set of constants—numbers and values that dictate the strengths of forces like gravity, the speed of light, and the masses of elementary particles. In The Constants of Nature, Cambridge Professor and bestselling author John D.Barrow takes us on an exploration of these governing principles. Drawing on physicists such as Einstein and Planck, Barrow illustrates with stunning clarity our dependence on the steadfastness of these principles. But he also suggests that the basic forces may have been radically different during the universe’s infancy, and suggests that they may continue a deeply hidden evolution. Perhaps most tantalizingly, Barrow theorizes about the realities that might one day be found in a universe with different parameters than our own.

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Print length

368 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date

March 9, 2004
Dimensions

5.2 x 0.8 x 8 inches
ISBN-10

1400032253
ISBN-13

978-1400032259
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Daniel M. Young

A Must Read for the Science Minded.

Reviewed in the United States on March 3, 2014

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I have read and re-read this book at least 5 times since I bought my first copy in 2003. Each time, a new insight or deeper understanding has emerged. I gave my first copy away and had to replace it because I wanted to re-read it again..Chapters 6, "The Mystery of the Very Large Numbers, " 7, "Biology and the Stars," and 8, "The Anthropic Principle" blew me away the first time I read it, and still do. Even though the subject matter is heavy, Barrow writes with a breezy style that makes it read like an historical adventure novel. I highly recommend it to the non-mathematician who wants to understand the true role of The Numbers in the Universe we inhabit and observe.

7 people found this helpful

Matthew Rapaport

Excellent summary of the traditional cosmological constants and many other important numbers

Reviewed in the United States on April 3, 2020

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This book is growing a bit old (2003) by the standards of cosmology in 2020, but I believe there has been little change, other than refinement, to the mystery and magnitude of the "cosmological constants" since it was written. Barrow here covers very much more than the narrow subject of the constants. He discusses also other aspects of the universe, its structure, age, the regularity of its laws, and all this from the viewpoint of implications for life and ultimately consciousness. The book has copious end notes and references. The technical science is well cited, but doesn't interfere with the flow of the subject as Barrow writes it. It is a tale well told and worth a read, even if as a refresher.

My only quibble is technical as concerns the kindle edition. In most of the discussion and formula scattered about the text (nothing too complicated here, definitions, quantities, and setting boundary conditions) some of the common symbols of physics (pi, the fine-structure constant, and a few others) are rendered only as "?" most, but not all, of the time. This is very annoying to say the least. The editors should have been paying more attention!

Another very good cover of these same subjects can be found in the slightly more recent "The Goldilocks Enigma" by Paul Davies, 2007. Either would be an excellent non-technical introduction to the subject.

9 people found this helpful

Interesting Topic — Incompetent Book Production

Reviewed in the United States on May 11, 2023

This review applies only to the Kindle edition.

The author discusses formulas that use Greek letters as symbols. The ebook inserts question marks where the Greek letters should be, making it impossible to discern what the author is attempting to express. This reflects utter carelessness and disregard on the part of the publisher. This problem should have been caught in proofreading.

The publisher owes every reader an apology.

Richard L. Lewis

Reviewed in the United States on December 15, 2014

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excellent reference book

Reviewed in the United States on October 19, 2019

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Waaaay over my head!

2 people found this helpful

Reviewed in the United States on January 12, 2007

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This was an entertaining book but a little tedious at times. Also it was not exactly what I expected. I thought it would be more of a description of different physical phenomena, while this is more like a survey of different historical approaches to uniting all constants with one theory, which constantly failed but shed light on many side issues along the way.

7 people found this helpful

Reviewed in the United States on March 15, 2015

Verified Purchase

As described

COMPLEX BUT EASY TO READ

Reviewed in the United States on September 16, 2009

Nature's Constants. Holy cow, what are those? Are they the inch, the foot, the yard, the mile? The answer to that question is...a definite maybe.

John D. Barrow, in his fascinating book, The Constants of Nature: The Numbers that Encode the Deepest Secrets of the Universe, tells us that our system of measurements, such as the inch, the foot, the yard and the mile are rather useless in defining nature, because they center around human beings--what he calls, anthropometrics. For instance, consider the concept of length. Originally, lengths were derived from the length of the king's arm or the span of his hand. The yard was the length of a tape drawn from the tip of a man's nose to the farthest fingertip of his arm when stretched horizontally to one side. Distances were reckoned as a day's journey. Likewise, time followed from rising and setting of the sun and the moon. Weights were quantities that could be carried in our hands or slung over our backs. Like the man said, all those things are anthropometric, or, man-centric; and they worked just fine as long as everybody used the same system. That's all fine and dandy, but what happens when one tries to understand the entire universe including all the worlds, all the stars, and all the galaxies and all the empty space? At that level, anthro...pro...whatever, just doesn't cut it anymore. We need something else, and that's where the Constants of Nature come into the picture.

At that point, the author takes us right into the discussion of these so-called constants of nature? In a nutshell, they're the fine structure numbers that give our universe its distinctive character--an attempt to create order out of chaos. Several constants have been defined, but to name four: Pi is a constant (' = 3.14159). Newton's law of gravity is a constant (GN = 6.67259 x 10-11m3s-2kg-1). The speed of light is a constant (c = 299,792,458 m/s), and the charge of an itsy-bitsy, teeny-tiny electron is another constant (e = 1.602x10-19C). Get the idea? Nobody knows why those things are what they are--don't even ask. But who cares? What's important is that wherever you go in our universe, they're the same. And that ladies and germs, is why the constants of nature are the true measuring rods of our universe.

Now notice that in the previous paragraph that I refer to our universe. I said ours because as scientists learned to define the constants of nature they began to realize that there could be more than just one universe (Twilight Zone). There could be a whole bunch of universes, and they could all be defined by their very own constants of nature. That's right. The force of gravity could be slightly stronger in another universe. Of course, that could have extreme ramifications. The stars may have collapsed sooner, and the universe itself may have completely died out without so much as a trace of its former self. So how would we know it ever existed? I don't know.

So that's a small piece of this 292-page book. First you try to understand the idea of nature's constants, and how they shaped our universe, and then you try to figure out what it would be like if they were different. Gulp. A lot of heavy thinkers worry about this stuff. By the way, the book's author, John D. Barrow, is no lightweight, anthropometrically speaking, of course. He's a Cambridge professor, so I think he knows what he's talking about.

Obviously, I couldn't write about everything in the thirteen chapters of this book. For one thing, my I.Q. is way too low. For another, there's just too much information. In my opinion, the author did a good job of spoon-feeding the information in small, easy to swallow bites, and he threw in a few tidbits of info here and there to keep the reader sharp. For instance, the author spends a lot of time telling us that the constants of nature are always the same. But then towards the end of the book he tells us that the constants may have changed. What? Does he mean that Pi hasn't always been 3.14159...? I guess so, but I can't even begin to imagine a circle where the diameter is exactly one inch and the circumference is exactly three inches. Can you? It's just too weird. So the bottom line, it seems, is that we're right back at the opening question: Are inches, yards and miles constants? Read the book. Maybe you can figure this stuff out.

3 people found this helpful

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eddie salazar gamboa

Completo apestar de tener 20

Reviewed in Mexico on December 28, 2023

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Su contenido es excelente

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