Our Mathematical Universe

Author: Max Tegmark
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307744256
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 434

Book Description
Max Tegmark leads us on an astonishing journey through past, present and future, and through the physics, astronomy and mathematics that are the foundation of his work, most particularly his hypothesis that our physical reality is a mathematical structure and his theory of the ultimate multiverse. In a dazzling combination of both popular and groundbreaking science, he not only helps us grasp his often mind-boggling theories, but he also shares with us some of the often surprising triumphs and disappointments that have shaped his life as a scientist. Fascinating from first to last—this is a book that has already prompted the attention and admiration of some of the most prominent scientists and mathematicians.

The Mathematical Universe

Author: Joel L. Schiff
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030506495
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 323

Book Description
I first had a quick look, then I started reading it. I couldn't stop. -Gerard 't Hooft (Nobel Prize, in Physics 1999) This is a book about the mathematical nature of our Universe. Armed with no more than basic high school mathematics, Dr. Joel L. Schiff takes you on a foray through some of the most intriguing aspects of the world around us. Along the way, you will visit the bizarre world of subatomic particles, honey bees and ants, galaxies, black holes, infinity, and more. Included are such goodies as measuring the speed of light with your microwave oven, determining the size of the Earth with a stick in the ground and the age of the Solar System from meteorites, understanding how the Theory of Relativity makes your everyday GPS system possible, and so much more. These topics are easily accessible to anyone who has ever brushed up against the Pythagorean Theorem and the symbol π, with the lightest dusting of algebra. Through this book, science-curious readers will come to appreciate the patterns, seeming contradictions, and extraordinary mathematical beauty of our Universe.

The Mathematical Universe

Author: William Dunham
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0471536563
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 323

Book Description
"Dunham writes for nonspecialists, and they will enjoy his piquantanecdotes and amusing asides -- Booklist "Artfully, Dunham conducts a tour of the mathematical universe. . .he believes these ideas to be accessible to the audience he wantsto reach, and he writes so that they are." -- Nature "If you want to encourage anyone's interest in math, get them TheMathematical Universe." * New Scientist

Reasoning with the Infinite

Author: Michel Blay
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226058351
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 230

Book Description
Until the Scientific Revolution, the nature and motions of heavenly objects were mysterious and unpredictable. The Scientific Revolution was revolutionary in part because it saw the advent of many mathematical tools—chief among them the calculus—that natural philosophers could use to explain and predict these cosmic motions. Michel Blay traces the origins of this mathematization of the world, from Galileo to Newton and Laplace, and considers the profound philosophical consequences of submitting the infinite to rational analysis. "One of Michael Blay's many fine achievements in Reasoning with the Infinite is to make us realize how velocity, and later instantaneous velocity, came to play a vital part in the development of a rigorous mathematical science of motion."—Margaret Wertheim, New Scientist

Poetry of the Universe

Author: Robert Osserman
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0307790584
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 225

Book Description
In the bestselling literary tradition of Lewis Thomas's Lives of a Cell and James Watson's The Double Helix, Poetry of the Universe is a delightful and compelling narrative charting the evolution of mathematical ideas that have helped to illuminate the nature of the observable universe. In a richly anecdotal fashion, the book explores teh leaps of imagination and vision in mathematics that have helped pioneer our understanding of the world around us.

A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe

Author: Michael S. Schneider
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062043161
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 523

Book Description
Discover how mathematical sequences abound in our natural world in this definitive exploration of the geography of the cosmos You need not be a philosopher or a botanist, and certainly not a mathematician, to enjoy the bounty of the world around us. But is there some sort of order, a pattern, to the things that we see in the sky, on the ground, at the beach? In A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe, Michael Schneider, an education writer and computer consultant, combines science, philosophy, art, and common sense to reaffirm what the ancients observed: that a consistent language of geometric design underpins every level of the universe, from atoms to galaxies, cucumbers to cathedrals. Schneider also discusses numerical and geometric symbolism through the ages, and concepts such as periodic renewal and resonance. This book is an education in the world and everything we can't see within it. Contains numerous b&w photos and illustrations.

The Singular Universe and the Reality of Time

Author: Roberto Mangabeira Unger
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107074061
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 567

Book Description
Roberto Mangabeira Unger and Lee Smolin argue for a revolution in our cosmological ideas. Ideal for non-scientists, physicists and cosmologists.

Birth of a Theorem

Author: Cédric Villani
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 0374710236
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 260

Book Description
In 2010, French mathematician Cédric Villani received the Fields Medal, the most coveted prize in mathematics, in recognition of a proof which he devised with his close collaborator Clément Mouhot to explain one of the most surprising theories in classical physics. Birth of aTheorem is Villani's own account of the years leading up to the award. It invites readers inside the mind of a great mathematician as he wrestles with the most important work of his career. But you don't have to understand nonlinear Landau damping to love Birth of aTheorem. It doesn't simplify or overexplain; rather, it invites readers into collaboration. Villani's diaries, emails, and musings enmesh you in the process of discovery. You join him in unproductive lulls and late-night breakthroughs. You're privy to the dining-hall conversations at the world's greatest research institutions. Villani shares his favorite songs, his love of manga, and the imaginative stories he tells his children. In mathematics, as in any creative work, it is the thinker's whole life that propels discovery—and with Birth of aTheorem, Cédric Villani welcomes you into his.

The Dream Universe

Author: David Lindley
Publisher: Doubleday
ISBN: 0385543867
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 218

Book Description
A vivid and captivating narrative about how modern science broke free of ancient philosophy, and how theoretical physics is returning to its unscientific roots In the early seventeenth century Galileo broke free from the hold of ancient Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy. He drastically changed the framework through which we view the natural world when he asserted that we should base our theory of reality on what we can observe rather than pure thought. In the process, he invented what we would come to call science. This set the stage for all the breakthroughs that followed--from Kepler to Newton to Einstein. But in the early twentieth century when quantum physics, with its deeply complex mathematics, entered into the picture, something began to change. Many physicists began looking to the equations first and physical reality second. As we investigate realms further and further from what we can see and what we can test, we must look to elegant, aesthetically pleasing equations to develop our conception of what reality is. As a result, much of theoretical physics today is something more akin to the philosophy of Plato than the science to which the physicists are heirs. In The Dream Universe, Lindley asks what is science when it becomes completely untethered from measurable phenomena?

The Invisible History of the Human Race

Author: Christine Kenneally
Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com
ISBN: 1458798704
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 477

Book Description
A New York Times Notable Book of 2014 We are doomed to repeat history if we fail to learn from it, but how are we affected by the forces that are invisible to us? What role does Neanderthal DNA play in our genetic makeup? How did the theory of eugenics embraced by Nazi Germany first develop? How is trust passed down in Africa, and silence inherited in Tasmania? How are private companies like Ancestry.com uncovering, preserving and potentially editing the past? In The Invisible History of the Human Race, Christine Kenneally reveals that, remarkably, it is not only our biological history that is coded in our DNA, but also our social history. She breaks down myths of determinism and draws on cutting - edge research to explore how both historical artefacts and our DNA tell us where we have come from and where we may be going.