The Nature of Space and Time (New in Paper)

The Nature of Space and Time (New in Paper)

by Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose
Epub (Kobo), Epub (Adobe)
Publication Date: 08/02/2010

Share This eBook:

  $24.99

Einstein said that the most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible. But was he right? Can the quantum theory of fields and Einstein's general theory of relativity, the two most accurate and successful theories in all of physics, be united in a single quantum theory of gravity? Can quantum and cosmos ever be combined? On this issue, two of the world's most famous physicists--Stephen Hawking (A Brief History of Time) and Roger Penrose (The Emperor's New Mind and Shadows of the Mind)--disagree. Here they explain their positions in a work based on six lectures with a final debate, all originally presented at the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences at the University of Cambridge.


How could quantum gravity, a theory that could explain the earlier moments of the big bang and the physics of the enigmatic objects known as black holes, be constructed? Why does our patch of the universe look just as Einstein predicted, with no hint of quantum effects in sight? What strange quantum processes can cause black holes to evaporate, and what happens to all the information that they swallow? Why does time go forward, not backward?


In this book, the two opponents touch on all these questions. Penrose, like Einstein, refuses to believe that quantum mechanics is a final theory. Hawking thinks otherwise, and argues that general relativity simply cannot account for how the universe began. Only a quantum theory of gravity, coupled with the no-boundary hypothesis, can ever hope to explain adequately what little we can observe about our universe. Penrose, playing the realist to Hawking's positivist, thinks that the universe is unbounded and will expand forever. The universe can be understood, he argues, in terms of the geometry of light cones, the compression and distortion of spacetime, and by the use of twistor theory. With the final debate, the reader will come to realize how much Hawking and Penrose diverge in their opinions of the ultimate quest to combine quantum mechanics and relativity, and how differently they have tried to comprehend the incomprehensible.


In a new afterword, the authors outline how recent developments have caused their positions to further diverge on a number of key issues, including the spatial geometry of the universe, inflationary versus cyclic theories of the cosmos, and the black-hole information-loss paradox. Though much progress has been made, Hawking and Penrose stress that physicists still have much farther to go in their quest for a quantum theory of gravity.

ISBN:
9781400834747
9781400834747
Category:
Physics
Format:
Epub (Kobo), Epub (Adobe)
Publication Date:
08-02-2010
Language:
English
Publisher:
Princeton University Press
Stephen Hawking

Stephen Hawking is regarded as one of the most brilliant theoretical physicists since Einstein. He held the position of Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge for thirty years and was the author of A Brief History of Time which was an international bestseller.

His many publications include The Large Scale Structure of Spacetime with G F R Ellis, General Relativity: An Einstein Centenary Survey, with W Israel, and 300 Years of Gravitation, with W Israel.

Among the popular books Stephen Hawking has published are his best seller A Brief History of Time, Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays, The Universe in a Nutshell, The Grand Design and My Brief History.

His other books for the general reader include A Briefer History of Time, the essay collection Black Holes and Baby Universe and The Universe In A Nutshell.

Stephen Hawking died in March 2018.

Roger Penrose

Trained as a mathematician, Sir Roger Penrose is better known for his work in cosmology, including his theory of "cosmic censorship", which suggests that no naked singularities other than the Big Bang exist or can exist in the universe.

His contributions to relativity theory have been described as second only to Albert Einstein's, and he has argued extensively that human consciousness is impossible without quantum mechanics.

He is also known for an innovative tiling of the affine plane, now called the Penrose tiling, and for his description of a mechanism to extract energy from a Kerr black hole.

In collaboration with Stephen Hawking he identified the basic distinguishing characteristics of black holes, and shared the 1988 Wolf Prize for Physics.

This item is delivered digitally

Reviews

Be the first to review The Nature of Space and Time (New in Paper).