Brossura

ISBN 10: 0141036117 ISBN 13: 9780141036113

Casa editrice: Penguin UK, 2010

John Gribbin's In Search of the Multiverse takes us on an extraordinary journey through the most fundamental questions in science, exploring the frontiers of reality itself. What are the boundaries of our universe? Could there be other worlds - do we actually live in a multiverse? Will we meet another 'us' in a different reality? Or are alternative worlds parallel but separate? John Gribbin guides us through the different theories about multiverses, along the way explaining the every latest thinking about gravity, about time and multiple dimensions, about quantum theory, about matter itself - and even the mind-bending possibility that one day we may be creating universes ourselves. John Gribbin is the best guide to the big questions of science. And there is no bigger question than our search for the multiverse. 'The master of popular science writing'
  Sunday Times 'In this universe at least, it's brilliant'
  BBC Focus 'Numerous books on the subject have appeared in the past few years, but Gribbin's stands out for succinctness and readability. Long renowned as one of Britain's finest popular science writers, Gribbin combines expert knowledge with straightforward, no-frills exposition'
  Scotland on Sunday John Gribbin is one of today's greatest writers of popular science and the author of bestselling books, including In Search of Schrödinger's Cat, Stardust, Science: A History and Deep Simplicity. Gribbin trained as an astrophysicist at Cambridge University and is currently Visiting Fellow in Astronomy at the University of Sussex.

From the Inside Flap:

Is our universe just one of many?

The most fascinating mysteries in modern physics seem to point us in that direction. As impossible as it seems—that other universes came before ours, float alongside ours, or even mirror ours—the evidence is surprisingly convincing.

In his most mind-blowing, sweeping work since Schrödinger's Kittens and the Search for Reality, acclaimed science writer and astrophysicist John Gribbin takes readers In Search of the Multiverse, launching an extraordinary journey to the frontiers of reality. Touching on the newest research on quantum physics, thermodynamics, string theory, and even the nature of God, this brilliant tour of the current state of cosmology also goes beyond the realm of settled science to the astonishing questions theoretical physicists have only now begun to ask.

Gribbin has long been known for his ability to explain even the most bewildering and complex ideas in the simplest of terms, and that skill is fully on display here. In this new book, he reveals why even the greatest thinkers can't explain the realities of quantum physics without bumping up against the unimaginable. He explores certain anomalies in our Universe that only make sense when you incorporate ideas that were once found only in science fiction. But which fantastical notion of alternate universes is the right one?

Gribbin guides you expertly through the competing Multiverse theories, who thought them up, and what problems they were hoping to solve with such outlandish ideas. You'll visit a realm of infinite space containing an infinite number of regions separated by infinite distances and ruled by different sets of physical laws. You'll drift along an infinite time line, on which different universes are strung out, one after the other, like beads on a wire. And you'll leaf through an infinitely thick book stuffed with an infinite number of pages: each page a different universe, existing in a different dimension—tantalizingly close together, but eternally unable to communicate with each other.

If our universe is three-dimensional and infinite, how could it be inside something else? Is it possible to travel to one of these alternate universes? Are particles traveling there every moment? How can scientists prove the existence of the Multiverse if they can't travel to it? Read In Search of the Multiverse and enter a world that is more mind-bending, thought-provoking, and imagination-sparking than the fantasy worlds you'd discover in a bookstore full of science fiction novels.

About the Author:

John Gribbin is one of today's greatest writers of popular science and the author of bestselling books, including In Search of Schrödinger's Cat, Stardust, Science: A History and Deep Simplicity. He is famous to his many fans for making complex ideas simple, and says that his aim in his writing - much of it done with his wife, Mary Gribbin - is to share with his readers his sense of wonder at the strangeness of the universe. John Gribbin trained as an astrophysicist at Cambridge University and is currently Visiting Fellow in Astronomy at the University of Sussex.