9780670031795

Humankind has grappled for millennia with the fundamental questions of the origin and end of the universe-it was a focus of ancient religions and myths and of the inquiries of Aristotle, Galileo, Copernicus, Kepler, and Newton. Today we are at the brink of discoveries that should soon reveal the deepest secrets of the universe. Alpha and Omegais a dispatch from the front lines of the cosmological revolution that is being waged at observatories and laboratories around the world-in Europe, in America, and even in Antarctica-where scientists are actually peering into both the cradle of the universe and its grave. Scientists-including galaxy hunters and microwave eavesdroppers, gravity theorists and atom smashers, all of whom are on the trail of dark matter, dark energy, and the growing inhabitants of the particle zoo-now know how the universe will end and are on the brink of understanding its beginning. Their findings will be among the greatest triumphs of science, even towering above the deciphering of the human genome. This is the book you need to help understand the frequent front-page headlines heralding dramatic cosmological discoveries. It makes cutting-edge science both crystal clear and wonderfully exciting.

Charles Seife, a journalist who holds a master's degree in mathematics from Yale University, has written for Science magazine as well as New Scientist, Scientific American, The Economist, Wired, The Sciences, and many other publications.

Preface	p. vii
The First Cosmology: The Golden Age of the Gods	p. 1
The First Cosmological Revolution: The Copernican Theory	p. 10
The Second Cosmological Revolution: Hubble and the Big Bang	p. 25
The Third Revolution Begins: The Universe Amok	p. 49
The Music of the Spheres: The Cosmic Microwave Background	p. 63
The Dark Universe: What's the Matter with Matter?	p. 90
Darker Still: The Enigma of Exotic Dark Matter	p. 103
The Big Bang in Our Backyard: The Birth of Baryons	p. 116
The Good Nus: The Exotic Neutrino	p. 132
Supersymmetry: Fearlessly Framing the Laws of Matter	p. 150
Seeing the Invisible: MACHOs, WIMPs, and Illuminating the Darkest Regions of the Universe	p. 163
The Deepest Mystery in Physics: A, the Vacuum, and Inflation	p. 182
Wrinkles in Spacetime: Gravitational Waves and the Early Universe	p. 199
Beyond the Third Revolution: Voyage to the Ends of Time	p. 215
Tired Light Retired	p. 225
Where Does Matter Come From?	p. 229
Nobel Prizes in Physics--Past and Future	p. 235
Some Experiments to Watch	p. 241
Glossary	p. 249
Select Bibliography	p. 269
Acknowledgments	p. 277
Index	p. 279
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

What is included with this book?

The New copy of this book will include any supplemental materials advertised. Please check the title of the book to determine if it should include any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.

The Used, Rental and eBook copies of this book are not guaranteed to include any supplemental materials. Typically, only the book itself is included. This is true even if the title states it includes any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.

Introduction I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. -Revelation 22:13 Ten billion light-years away, Nature screams. In a fraction of a second, a star explodes with more energy than ten billion billion billion hydrogen bombs. For a few weeks, the funeral pyre of the dying sun blazes and outshines the countless stars of its galaxy. When a star dies as a supernova, it is visible halfway across the universe. The light from that supernova travels for ten billion years, attenuated and stretched along the way. By the time the light reaches Earth, it is far too dim to be spotted by the naked eye, but telescopes can see the supernova as a dim blotch in the sky. It is a message from the ends of the cosmos-a message whose receipt on Earth heralds the beginning of a revolution. This revolution began in the late 1990s, when two teams of scientists began to decode the death throes of dying stars. Their observations showed that the universe was suffused with a mysterious "dark energy," an invisible substance that stretches the very fabric of space and time. The discovery of dark energy baffled and delighted astronomers, who scrambled to confirm the observations and understand the enigma. What's more, the stellar death rattles held the secret to the universe's death-scientists merely had to decrypt the message from the dying stars and they would understand how the cosmos would end. That message has now been deciphered. On June 25, 2001, Timemagazine devoted its cover to the end of the universe. "Peering deep into space and time, scientists have just solved the biggest mystery in the cosmos," it exclaimed. This is no overstatement. Cosmologists now know how the universe will end, and a new set of experiments, whose results have begun to trickle out, is removing the veil over the big bang, showing us how it began. The revolution is being fought on many fronts, by astronomers, cosmologists, and physicists, high atop the Chilean mountains, deep underneath the Canadian soil, stranded in the middle of the Antarctic wasteland, and all across the globe. Alpha and Omegais the story of galaxy hunters and the microwave eavesdroppers, gravity theorists and particle physicists, quantum theorists and atom smashers, all of whom are on the brink of major discoveries. Each of their stories, taken alone, would be noteworthy. Together, they add up to a renaissance-a major shift in our understanding of the universe. This shift is happening right now, and it is far from finished. Alpha and Omegais the story of the most exciting scientific discoveries in decades and the people behind them. It is also a guide to understanding the headlines that are erupting in Time, in the New York Times, in Science, and in newspapers and magazines all across the planet. This revolution in cosmology will be front-page news again and again over the next few years. Indeed, it will be one of the most important scientific stories of the twenty-first century. When it is over, we will have seen the moment of creation, and we will see the face of our own destruction. Chapter 1 The First Cosmology [The Golden Age of the Gods] Then All-father took Night and her son, Day, and gave them two horses and two chariots and put them up in the sky, so that they should ride round the world every twenty-four hours. Night rides first on a horse called Hrimfaxi, and every morning he bedews the earth with the foam from his bit. Day's horse is called Skinfaxi, and the whole earth and sky are illumined by his mane. -Snorri Sturluson, The Prose Edda Perhaps it happened on a midwinter's night thirty thousand years ago. A tribe of cavemen huddled close to the embers of a dying flame. A single hairy face

Amazon no longer offers textbook rentals. We do!

Alpha and Omega The Search for the Beginning and End of the Universe

Alpha and Omega The Search for the Beginning and End of the Universe

0670031798

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials

Excerpts