The Life of the Cosmos

by Smolin, Lee

• ISBN13: 9780195126648
• ISBN10: 0195126645
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-03-04
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Lee Smolin offers a new theory of the universe that is at once elegant, comprehensive, and radically different from anything proposed before. Smolin posits that a process of self organization like that of biological evolution shapes the universe, as it develops and eventually reproducesthrough black holes, each of which may result in a new big bang and a new universe. Natural selection may guide the appearance of the laws of physics, favoring those universes which best reproduce. The result would be a cosmology according to which life is a natural consequence of the fundamentalprinciples on which the universe has been built, and a science that would give us a picture of the universe in which, as the author writes, "the occurrence of novelty, indeed the perpetual birth of novelty, can be understood." Smolin is one of the leading cosmologists at work today, and he writes with an expertise and force of argument that will command attention throughout the world of physics. But it is the humanity and sharp clarity of his prose that offers access for the layperson to the mind bending space at theforefront of today's physics.

Author Biography

Lee Smolin is Professor of Physics at the Center for Gravitational Physics and Geometry at the Pennsylvania State University. As a theoretical physicist, he has contributed several key ideas to the search for a unification of quantum theory, cosmology, and relativity.

Table of Contents

Prologue/Revolutions	p. 3
Introduction	p. 11
the Crisis in Fundamental Physics	p. 21
Light and Life	p. 23
the Logic of Atomism	p. 30
the Miracle of the Stars	p. 36
the Dream of Unification	p. 47
the Lessons of String Theory	p. 58
an Ecology of Space and Time	p. 73
Are the Laws of Physics Universal?	p. 75
Did the Universe Evolve?	p. 90
Detective Work	p. 107
the Ecology of the Galaxy	p. 116
Games and Galaxies	p. 129
Th E Organization of the Cosmos	p. 139
What is Life?	p. 141
the Cosmology of an Interesting Universe	p. 161
the Flower and the Dodecahedron	p. 177
Philosophy, Religion, and Cosmology	p. 192
Beyond the Anthropic Principle	p. 202
Einstein's Legacy	p. 211
Space and Time in the New Cosmology	p. 213
the Road from Newton to Einstein	p. 222
the Meaning of Einstein's Theory of Relativity	p. 233
the Meaning of the Quantum	p. 240
Einstein's Revenge	p. 255
Cosmology and the Quantum	p. 257
a Pluralistic Universe	p. 267
the World as a Network of Relations	p. 276
the Evolution of Time	p. 285
Epilogue/ Evolutions	p. 294
Appendix: Testing Cosmological Natural Selection	p. 301
Notes and Acknowledgments	p. 324
Selected Bibliography	p. 337
Glossary of Scientific and Philosophical Terms	p. 342
Index	p. 347
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