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

by Carroll, Sean

• ISBN13: 9780525951339
• ISBN10: 0525951334
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-01-07
• Publisher: E P Dutton

Summary

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 beforethe 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 Hereuses 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 Universeand A Brief History of Time.

Author Biography

Sean Carroll, Ph.D., is a theoretical physicist at the California Institute of Technology. After receiving his doctorate from Harvard University, he pursued his research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Institute for Theoretical Physics in Santa Barbara, and the University of Chicago. He has published papers on dark matter and dark energy, the physics of extra dimensions, and alternative theories of gravity as well as the graduate-level textbook Spacetime and Geometry. Sean Carroll is one of the founders of the group blog cosmicvariance.com, named one of the five top science blogs by Nature.

Table of Contents

Prologue: The nature of time, the importance of entropy, and the role of cosmology	p. 1
Time, Experience, and The Universe
The Past Is Present Memory	p. 9
The Heavy Hand of Entropy	p. 26
The Beginning and End of Time	p. 44
Time In Einstein's Universe
Time Is Personal	p. 67
Time Is Flexible	p. 82
Looping Through Time	p. 93
Entropy and Time's Arrow
Running Time Backward	p. 119
Entropy and Disorder	p. 143
Information and Life	p. 179
Recurrent Nightmares	p. 202
Quantum Time	p. 228
From The Kitchen to The Multiverse
Black Holes: The Ends of Time	p. 259
The Life of the Universe	p. 287
Inflation and the Multiverse	p. 315
The Past Through Tomorrow	p. 339
Epilogue	p. 366
Appendix: Math	p. 377
Notes	p. 385
Bibliography	p. 411
Acknowledgments	p. 421
Index	p. 423
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