The Complete Idiot's Guide to Theories of the Universe

by Gary Moring

Overview

You’re no idiot, of course. You know Heisenburg’s uncertainty principle has nothing to do with where you put your car keys. But modern cosmology is relatively complicated. The mystery of the universe definitely isn’t one we can flip to the end to see whodunit. 

That hasn’t stopped physicists, astronomers, and philosophers from searching for clues! The topic is infinite (literally), but once you’ve read this book, you’ll have a solid idea of our place in the universe—and even where the cosmos itself might be headed. In this Complete Idiot’s Guide®, you’ll explore:

   • Major religions, philosophical, and scientific theories concerning the nature and origin of the universe.

   • “The theory of everything”—one coherent model that would explain how all the forces and particles of nature work.

   • The fascinating and even sometimes bizarre implications of the latest theories.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781440695728
Publisher:	DK
Publication date:	12/01/2001
Series:	COMPLETE IDIOT'S GUIDE
Sold by:	Penguin Group
Format:	eBook
Pages:	384
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Gary Moring is the author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Understanding Einstein and The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Theories of the Universe. He teaches physics and the history and philosophy of science at the University of Phoenix in Northern California. He has received numerous awards for teaching excellence. He has also been a curriculum consultant for the University.

Table of Contents

Part 1	In the Beginning	1
1	Once Upon a Time	3
	Cosmology, Cosmogony, and the Cosmos	4
	Mesopotamia, or Where It All Began	5
	So You Want to Be a Hero!	5
	Family Feud	6
	The Magnificent Seven	7
	Genesis	7
	Ancient Hebrew Cosmology	8
	The Chicken or the Egg	9
	Compass Headings and Complementary Opposites	10
	The Four Directions	11
	Heaven and Earth	12
2	The Music of the Spheres	15
	The Essence of All Things	16
	Numbers with Feelings	17
	Harmonies of Heaven and Earth	18
	Back to Babylon	20
	The Seven Sacred Planets	20
	Music Therapy	21
	The Rhythm of the Universe	22
	The World Soul	24
	The First Cause	24
	You Gotta Have Soul	25
3	A Brief History of Esoteric Philosophy	27
	What Is Esoteric Philosophy?	27
	Hermes and the Hermits	29
	The Emerald Tablet	30
	The Perennial Philosophy	32
	Fruits of Knowledge	33
	Rosicrucianism	33
	Freemasonry	34
	The Cabalah	36
	Why All of This Is So Important	37
4	Transitions in Thinking	39
	Simple Minds, Simple Pleasures	40
	Life in the Fast Lane	42
	The Birth of the Renaissance Ideal	43
	The Good Life	44
	Perfection Is the Key	44
	The Hermetic Revival	45
	Marsilio Ficino	46
	Pico della Mirandola	46
	Giordano Bruno	47
Part 2	Science Comes of Age, but Isn't 21 Yet	49
5	You Mean We're Not at the Center of the Universe?	51
	What You See Is What You Get	52
	Walk Like an Egyptian	53
	The Copernican Revolution	55
	The Problem with Easter	56
	Displaced Humanity	58
	Galileo Scopes It Out	58
	Kepler's Contributions	60
6	The Scientific Revolution	63
	What You See Isn't Necessarily What You Get	64
	Systems of Science	65
	Three Different Styles	66
	It's All in the Mind	67
	Pass the Bacon, Francis	69
	Descartes's Dualism	69
	"I Think, Therefore I Am"	70
	The Mind/Body Problem	71
	Lost Along the Way	73
7	Cosmology in the Age of Enlightenment	75
	What Is Enlightenment?	75
	Whose Science Is Whose?	77
	Science Is King	79
	The Word of God	80
	Half and Half	81
	The Science of Alchemy	83
	Lead into Gold	83
	It All Boils Down to Boyle	84
	Newton's Alchemical Apple	85
8	Physics 101	89
	Honey, I Shrunk the Universe!	90
	Can't Forget About Math	92
	You're Getting Warmer	94
	The Dynamics of Electromagnetism	96
	Light, Lenses, and Optics	98
	Just a Little Bit of Chemistry	99
	The Attraction of Gravity	100
Part 3	And in This Corner...	103
9	Evolution vs. Creationism	105
	Is Truth in the Eye of the Beholder?	106
	It's a Matter of Opinion	107
	Degrees of Truth	108
	How Did We Get Here?	109
	You Have Been Selected	110
	The Ladder of Creation	111
	And God Said	113
	To Believe or Not To Believe, That Is the Question	114
10	The Dual Nature of Light	117
	Waves of Light	118
	You Can't See It, but It Has to Be There	119
	Faraday's Fields	120
	Maxwell's Mathematics	121
	The Experiment That Failed	122
	Waves Come in All Shapes and Sizes	124
	A Little Bit of Quanta Goes a Long Way	125
	Our Journey So Far	127
11	Cracks in a Newtonian World	129
	The Clock Breaks!	130
	Hot Things Glow	131
	Faster Than a Speeding Light Wave	132
	Unchanging Time and Space	133
	Passing Your Exams!	134
	It All Depends on Your Position	135
	Sometimes Relativity Is Absolute	137
12	The Relative Nature of Space and Time	141
	It's About Time	142
	Atomic Time	143
	Geological Time	144
	Biological Time	145
	Astronomical Time	146
	How Can You Be in Two Places at Once?	147
	Keeping Track of Time	149
	The Faster You Go, the Shorter You Get	150
Part 4	From Here to Infinity	153
13	Famous Equations and Pools of Jell-O	155
	The Conversion of Energy	155
	E = mc[superscript 2]	156
	Infinite Mass	156
	Recapping Relativity	159
	Thank God, the Ground Broke My Fall!	161
	Einstein's Happiest Thought	162
	Gravity Is Relative, Too	163
	Curved Space	165
14	That Old Quantum Theory	169
	Founding Fathers	170
	Quantum Leaps	171
	Planck's Constant	172
	Photoelectric Effect Explained, the Quantum Strikes Again	174
	Bohr's Atomic Theory	177
15	Chunks of Uncertainty	181
	Waves of Matter	181
	A French Prince Discovers Matter Waves	182
	Just a Little Math Won't Hurt	184
	More Wave Mechanics	186
	Born of Probability	187
	Probability Leads to Uncertainty	189
	They're Complementary After All	190
	Wonderful, Wonderful Copenhagen	191
16	Forces, Particles, and Some Cosmological Glue	195
	An Atomic Review	196
	The Nucleus and the Proton	197
	Size in the Microcosm	197
	The Fundamental Forces of Nature	198
	The Neutron Decay	199
	Neutrinos and the Weak Force	200
	The Forces You Already Know	202
	Cosmic Rays, Greek Particles, and Accelerators	203
	Mu and Pi	205
	From Natural to Man-Made	206
	The Particle Zoo	206
	The Last Train to Quarkville	208
17	Scientific Origins of the Universe	211
	The Cosmological Pendulum	212
	Bang That Drum	215
	Einstein's Closed Universe	216
	The Primeval Atom	217
	Another Bang	218
	A Big Bang Alternative	219
	Microwaves to the Rescue	220
Part 5	Supersymmetry, Superstrings, and Holograms	223
18	The Accelerating Universe	225
	It's Bigger Than We Thought	226
	Plasma Cosmology	227
	The Standard Model	230
	The Alpha and the Omega	231
	The Need for Dark Matter	233
	Living in the Flatlands	234
	It's Out of Control	235
19	Supersymmetry, Superpartners, and Superman	237
	The First Three Minutes	238
	Attempts at Unification	239
	Quantum Mechanics vs. General Relativity	241
	The Gravity of the Situation	242
	The Planck Scale	243
	Symmetry Breaking	245
	The Spin Doctors	246
	Introducing SUSY	246
	Interdimensional Travel	247
	No, I'm Sparticles!	248
20	It's All Held Together with Strings	251
	A Brief History of String Theory	252
	The Cosmic Onion	254
	Musical Strings	254
	The Important Part	255
	The Second Requirement, Extra Dimensions	257
	The Kaluza-Klein Dimension	258
	Unification in Higher Dimensions	260
	How Many Dimensions Are There?	261
	The Short Version of the Second Superstring Revolution	262
21	The Universe As a Hologram	265
	What's a Hologram?	266
	Action at a Distance	267
	A Remarkable Event	269
	Nonlocality	270
	Quantum Potential	271
	The Importance of Wholeness	272
	Ordered Reality	274
	The Holographic Universe	275
Part 6	Old Endings and New Beginnings	279
22	Psychology, Cosmology, and Consciousness	281
	The Study of the Soul	281
	"With Our Thoughts We Make the World"	285
	Holographic Brains	285
	These Are Holograms, Too?	286
	Space and Time, in the Mind	287
	Categories of Space and Time	288
	The Implicate Mind	289
	Past, Present, and Future	291
23	Eastern Cosmology and the Cyclic Universe	293
	What Goes Around, Comes Around	294
	Linear vs. Cyclic	295
	Right Brain or Left Brain?	296
	Unity in Diversity	298
	The Eternal Return	299
	A Day and Night of Brahma	300
	The Dance of Shiva	302
	It's All Energy	303
24	Symbolic Systems and the Self-Aware Universe	305
	Multidimensional Symbols	305
	Change Is the Only Constant	306
	Energy Comes in Many Forms	307
	The Sages of China	309
	Cosmological Principles	310
	The Tree of Life	313
	Be Your Own Psychic and Save Some Money	314
	The Cabalah and Superstrings	316
25	The Future of Humanity	319
	What Was It All For?	320
	It's All About Us	320
	Ethical Eschatology	321
	The Underworld	322
	Mummies, Mummies, and More Mummies	322
	Thus Spoke Zarathushtra	324
	The Sage and the Prophet	324
	A Prophecy Primer	326
	The Christian Outlook	328
	Appendixes
A	Cosmological Kernels	331
B	Suggested Reading List	339
	Index	343