Time One
Understanding Physics
Published on 1. October 2020
449 pages
978-0-7953-3352-1 (ISBN)
Description
The physicist and author of
This Changes Everythingpresents an engaging inquiry into the origins of the universe and the beginning of time.
In Time One, Colin Gillespie takes on the greatest scientific mystery of all time with the aid of a fictional detective. Approaching forty-seven classic philosophical problems as clues to the question of how the universe began, Gillespie connects the dots across centuries of philosophy, literature and religion-and leads readers to asingle, elegant solution.
Using the devices of storytelling to help readers understand the serious science being discussed-such as the theory of relativity, quantum mechanics and string theory-Gillespie reveals thevery instant time beginsand explains exactly how the universe is constructed. Time Onetackles the most important issues in physics and cosmology and its answers are both fascinating and strikingly simple.
In Time One, Colin Gillespie takes on the greatest scientific mystery of all time with the aid of a fictional detective. Approaching forty-seven classic philosophical problems as clues to the question of how the universe began, Gillespie connects the dots across centuries of philosophy, literature and religion-and leads readers to asingle, elegant solution.
Using the devices of storytelling to help readers understand the serious science being discussed-such as the theory of relativity, quantum mechanics and string theory-Gillespie reveals thevery instant time beginsand explains exactly how the universe is constructed. Time Onetackles the most important issues in physics and cosmology and its answers are both fascinating and strikingly simple.
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Person
Colin Gillespie is a physicist turned lawyer turned author. He has an insatiable curiosity and an off-the-charts IQ. He has a passion not only for science but for literature (with an especially warm spot for fictional detectives). These are mixed with an abiding sense of personal humility and social responsibility, a wicked sense of humour, and a seemingly boundless source of energy. Over the course of an eclectic 40-year career, he has researched, lectured, and explored the world (50 countries and counting). A distinguished scientist, he has written more than 30 articles in international peer-reviewed journals on radiation biology, biophysics, neurophysiology, and physics. As a lawyer he has written on environmental law, indigenous and aboriginal law, and space law.
Time One: Discover How the Universe Began, follows Gillespie's previous book,
This Changes Everything where he comes up with a new take on cosmology and physics.
Content
- Intro
- Cover
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- The Sinecure
- PART I: THE CASE HISTORY
- Wishing Well
- Enter the Detective
- The Old Divide
- Trouble in Paradise
- The New Divide
- Bridging Divides
- Relatively Speaking
- Generally Speaking
- Einstein's Universe
- Quantally Speaking
- It's Complementary
- The Copenhagen Hegemony
- Effect and Cause
- De Broglie and Bohm
- On Location
- Looking Far
- Looking Forward, Looking Back
- The Expanding Universe
- The Disappearing Universe
- The Antigravity Effect
- The Primeval Atom
- The Aether Story
- A Time for Space
- The Grip of Gravity
- What's the Matter
- Time to Tunnel
- Beauty and a Beast
- Both Sides Now
- Strings and Things
- The War for Independence
- Loop Quantum Gravity
- The Mysterious Manifold
- Getting Organized
- In a Word
- Faith in Math
- Because We Are Here
- PART II: THE COSMIC CLUES
- The Investigation
- The Mystery of the Missing Bang
- The Problem of Two Theories
- The Problem of the Special Frame
- The Problem of the Three Dimensions
- The Problem of Kaluza and Klein
- The Problem of the Speed of Light
- The Problem of Inertia
- The Riddle of Rotation
- The Horizon Problem
- The Lumps Problem
- The Reason for Smoothness
- The Problem of Filling Space
- The Flatness Problem
- The Problem of Dark Energy
- The Vacuum Catastrophe
- The Missing Monopoles
- The Atomic Matrioshka Problem
- The Problem of Antimatter
- The Boundary Problem
- The Observer Problem
- The Measurement Problem
- The Reality of Non-Locality
- The Spooky Action Problem
- The Mystery of Superposition
- The Problem of Under-Determination
- The Problems with Gravity
- The Zeros and Infinities
- The Singularity Problem
- The Curse of Continuity
- The Problem of the Missing Holes
- The Problem of Whether Reality is Real
- The Problem with Inflation
- The Problem of the Indefatigable Æther
- The Background Problem
- The Troubles with Strings
- The Direction of Time
- The Problem of Perfection
- The Problem of the Second Law
- The Problem of Whether Space is Something
- The Troubles with Times
- The Problem of Parameters
- The Problem of Small Numbers
- The Problem of Mathematics
- The Problem of the Cosmic Constant
- The Coincidence Problem
- The Problem of the One and the Many
- The Problem of the Initial Condition
- Cut to the Chase
- On Beginning
- The Plot Thickens
- PART III: THE APPREHENSIONS
- The Dawning of Enlightenment
- Beginning the Beguining
- The Rules
- Time Out
- Time One
- The Cosmic Clock
- The Big Fizz
- The Universal Computer
- The Origin of Lumps
- At the Same Time
- On Order
- Unreal Numbers
- Gone Fizzion
- About Time
- Much About Nothing
- Dénouement
- PART IV: THE WAY OF IT ALL
- A Quantum for Gravity
- On the Hole
- Making Space
- The Final Cut
- Twist n Shout
- Matter of Fact
- Shine a Light
- The Unmissed Move
- Untangling Entanglement
- Three Threads for the Cosmic CPU
- Random Order
- Moving On
- The Ultimate Uncertainty
- Write or Wrong
- PART V: FROM HERE TO ETERNITY
- Over the Horizon
- Almost an Ansatz
- The Road to Reality
- The Meaning of Quantum Theory
- The Writing on the Wall
- T Minus One
- A Tale of Two Troubles
- The Future of Physics
- The Role of Religion
- Bridging One Divide
- Where All the Photons Go
- The End
- Farewell to Arms
- Epilogue: Noch Eine Scandal in Bohemia
- Postpartum
- Acknowledgments
