Author:
Vigdor, Steven E. author.
Edition Statement:First edition.
ImprintOxford, United Kingdom : Oxford University Press, 2018.
Descriptionxv, 345 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 23 cm
Note:Thank heaven for little flaws -- Where's the antimatter gone, long time passing? -- Trinity -- Water, water, here and there -- Expansion everlasting -- The dark side -- Randomness and complexity -- The edge of the abyss -- Lucky or special?
Bibliography Note:Includes bibliographical references (pages 306-331) and index.
Note:This is a broad-ranging, non-mathematical introduction to recent and ongoing research that has illuminated the physical conditions necessary for our universe to support structure and life. The primary focus is on particle and nuclear physics and cosmology, which have exposed the fine-tuning and imperfections vital for a habitable universe. These conditions rely on a surprising number of tiny imperfections--deviations from perfect symmetry (i.e., symmetry violations), homogeneity, or predictability--that seem mysteriously fine-tuned. The emphasis here is on the intricate tapestry of elegant experiments that have revealed and quantified these imperfections, as well as on theoretical efforts to understand how the imperfections arose in the infant universe. Among the topics covered are: the dominance of matter over antimatter (i.e., matter-antimatter asymmetry); the existence and intermixing of three generations of quarks and leptons; the stability of hydrogen and synthesis of other elements essential for life; the longevity and energy budget of the universe; the remaining mysteries surrounding dark matter, dark energy, and the postulated inflationary expansion of space in the infant universe; the fundamental role of randomness in quantum mechanics, in generating the first biomolecules and in biological evolution; the apparent perching of the vacuum state in our universe on the edge between stability and meta-stability; and philosophical questions, including the possibility of a multiverse, surrounding the interpretation of a universe that exhibits such fine-tuning. On all of these issues, the book clarifies what we know and how we know it, as distinct from what we speculate and how we might test it.
