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3.75 AVERAGE
3.75 AVERAGE
informative
medium-paced
Krauss may be a great many things. Modest is not one of them. It isn't a charming confidence either. Subtlety is also lacking in his writing. We get it. You don't believe in God. Can we read about physics now? Oh wait, maybe my librarian is the one to blame. This should have been shelved in the religion section.
Excellent book, a little dense in places where you may need to re-read certain sections if you zone out even a little.
While the book gives a wonderful explanation on multiverse and string theory, it fails to live up to the objective. Not a bad book, but I feel that the medium of explaining this through a book was too lofty of a goal. It felt like he was repeating himself in places.
This book surprised me with its readability. I didn't feel like I was an average 5th grader taking a university course in physics ALL the time, although I do admit that somethings were above my head. If I ever want to learn anything outside of my current capability, obviously it's not going to come easy. This was very accessible though.
"Quantum fluctuations, which otherwise would have been completely invisible, get frozen by inflation and emergy afterward as density fluctuations that produce everything we can see! If we are all stardust, it is also true, if inflation happened, that we all, literally, emerged from quantum nothingness". (p.98)
The other startling conclusion is that we live in a day and age where it is still possible to measure evidence of the Big Bang and light can still travel from galaxy to galaxy. A few trillion years down the line, this will not be possible. It will only be possible to know about the mega-galaxy that the cluster the Milky Way belongs to will have merged with. The other galaxies and stars will have sped away from us, beyond an observable distance. Well, I never thought of that before!
I am quite bothered by light pollution, but not enough to regularly travel into the wilderness and look at the stars. I should take the time. Ponder the fact that we live in a special time, when the mysteries of the universe can still be considered, theorized about and proven by observation. I haven't seen the Milky Way since I was 10 years old, much less any smudge of a galaxy which isn't the one I live in. My knowledge of the sky is limited to the ability of telling stars from planets, but that doesn't deter me from enjoying it.
"Quantum fluctuations, which otherwise would have been completely invisible, get frozen by inflation and emergy afterward as density fluctuations that produce everything we can see! If we are all stardust, it is also true, if inflation happened, that we all, literally, emerged from quantum nothingness". (p.98)
The other startling conclusion is that we live in a day and age where it is still possible to measure evidence of the Big Bang and light can still travel from galaxy to galaxy. A few trillion years down the line, this will not be possible. It will only be possible to know about the mega-galaxy that the cluster the Milky Way belongs to will have merged with. The other galaxies and stars will have sped away from us, beyond an observable distance. Well, I never thought of that before!
I am quite bothered by light pollution, but not enough to regularly travel into the wilderness and look at the stars. I should take the time. Ponder the fact that we live in a special time, when the mysteries of the universe can still be considered, theorized about and proven by observation. I haven't seen the Milky Way since I was 10 years old, much less any smudge of a galaxy which isn't the one I live in. My knowledge of the sky is limited to the ability of telling stars from planets, but that doesn't deter me from enjoying it.
What can i say about this book, it is simply amazing.
Lawrence Krauss manages to take subjects such as inflation (of the universe, not money), quantum mechanics, the big bang, particles appearing and disappearing from nothing and present it in a readable format that the layman can digest.
I have learned so much from this book i cannot wait to jump onto the next one, The Greatest Story Ever Told (so far). Excellent references, excellent examples and excellent explanations make this book one of the best physics references there is.
If you're interested in where we actually come from, and why, then this is definitely what you're looking for. Read it!
Lawrence Krauss manages to take subjects such as inflation (of the universe, not money), quantum mechanics, the big bang, particles appearing and disappearing from nothing and present it in a readable format that the layman can digest.
I have learned so much from this book i cannot wait to jump onto the next one, The Greatest Story Ever Told (so far). Excellent references, excellent examples and excellent explanations make this book one of the best physics references there is.
If you're interested in where we actually come from, and why, then this is definitely what you're looking for. Read it!
While I wanted to like it, I couldn't get my thick brain around it. Evolutionary biology, I can get. This physics, quantum stuff...zoom...over my head. Sorry.
Read this immediately after Stephen Hawking's 'A Brief History of Time'. I feel like that book set me up to understand some of this book. However, for a lot of the book, I found myself zoning out, and I found the diagrams/graphs rather confusing. Nonetheless, I did take some things away from this book, so it was not a complete failure of a read on my part. I also agree with the author's views on living life without the need for the supernatural and finding your own meaning in life, so +1 star there.
"A universe without purpose or guidance may seem, for some, to make life itself meaningless. For others, including me, such a universe is invigorating. It makes the fact of our existence even more amazing, and it motivates us to draw meaning from our own actions and to make the most of our brief existence in the sun, simply because we are here, blessed with consciousness and with the opportunity to do so."
"A universe without purpose or guidance may seem, for some, to make life itself meaningless. For others, including me, such a universe is invigorating. It makes the fact of our existence even more amazing, and it motivates us to draw meaning from our own actions and to make the most of our brief existence in the sun, simply because we are here, blessed with consciousness and with the opportunity to do so."
Another book I found tough to get through. Partially I read this episodically - it might have been better in larger chunks. I was a bit shocked by how much things had advanced since my (very dim) memory of [b:A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes|518980|A Brief History of Time From the Big Bang to Black Holes|Stephen Hawking|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1175477650s/518980.jpg|2192250], which apparently came out about 20 years ago. Jeez.
I admit I didn't follow everything that he said, but I may know more now than I did? It's kind of hard to tell, honestly, but I'm not sorry I read it.
I admit I didn't follow everything that he said, but I may know more now than I did? It's kind of hard to tell, honestly, but I'm not sorry I read it.