Einstein's Dream The Search For A Unified Theory Of The Universe

by Parker, Barry

• ISBN13: 9780738205755
• ISBN10: 0738205753
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-07-30
• Publisher: Basic Books

Summary

The author chronicles the search for . . . a theory to explain all natural fields and their interaction with particles. . . . Lives and contributions of physicists and cosmologists, starting with the pioneers of scientific cosmology in the 19th century, are described. Topics range from Maxwell's discovery of the laws of magnetic fields to Hawking's work on black hole physics. A concluding chapter looks at the current state of unified field theory. (Sci Books Films)

Author Biography

Barry Parker, Ph.D, is an award-winning science writer and the author of eleven highly acclaimed books in popular science, including Alien Life, Cosmic Time Travel, Einstein's Dream, and Einstein's Brainchild.

Table of Contents

The Goal	p. 1
The Search for Meaning	p. 8
Einstein's Dream	p. 17
Warped Space-Time	p. 21
Curved Space	p. 26
Einstein and Warped Space-Time	p. 29
Extreme Warping	p. 46
Early Unified Field Theories	p. 41
Faraday, Maxwell, and the Electromagnetic Field	p. 50
Early Attempts at Unification	p. 61
Einstein's Unified Field Theory	p. 66
Star Death	p. 73
Eddington	p. 74
The Life Cycle of a Star	p. 79
Chandrasekhar and the White Dwarfs	p. 84
Beyond the White Dwarf	p. 89
Reflection	p. 95
The Ultimate Abyss: The Black Hole	p. 97
Oppenheimer and Continuing Collapse	p. 100
Collapse of a Star to a Black Hole	p. 107
Inside a Black Hole	p. 110
Other Types of Black Holes	p. 112
Searching for Black Holes	p. 114
Other Black Hole Candidates	p. 118
A Realistic Look at the Exotic Possibilities	p. 120
Where the Theory Breaks Down	p. 124
The Discovery of Evaporating Black Holes	p. 126
The Link between General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics	p. 131
The Early Universe	p. 133
Discovery of the Expanding Universe	p. 134
Back to the Big Bang	p. 154
The Ultimate Singularity	p. 156
Inflation	p. 159
The Hadron Era	p. 159
The Lepton Era	p. 161
The Radiation Era	p. 161
The Cosmic Background Radiation	p. 162
The Galaxy Era	p. 166
Reflection	p. 168
Cosmological Controversy	p. 171
The Age of the Universe	p. 174
The Redshift Controversy	p. 181
Rival Cosmologies	p. 186
Varying G Cosmologies and Cosmic Numbers	p. 191
Antimatter and Other Cosmologies	p. 193
Other Universes	p. 195
The Final Fate of the Universe	p. 199
The Missing Mass	p. 201
Other Methods of Determining if the Universe Is Open or Closed	p. 206
Fate of the Closed Universe	p. 208
Bounce	p. 209
Fate of the Open Universe	p. 211
The World of Particles and Fields	p. 213
Dirac's Equation	p. 217
The Infinities	p. 220
Renormalization	p. 222
Yukawa	p. 230
Gauge Theory	p. 233
The Weak Interactions	p. 237
Quantum Chromodynamics	p. 241
Summary and Further Subdivision	p. 249
A Unified Theory of the Universe	p. 253
Supergravity and Superstrings	p. 263
Twistors and Heaven (H Space)	p. 268
Epilogue	p. 271
The Future	p. 273
The New Einstein	p. 274
Further Reading	p. 277
Index	p. 279
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