Cycles of Time: An Extraordinary New View of the Universe - Softcover

Penrose, Roger

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0099505940 ISBN 13: 9780099505945

Publisher: Vintage, 2011

Synopsis

What came before the Big Bang?

How did the universe begin and must it inevitably end?
In this remarkable book Roger Penrose brilliantly illuminates some of the deepest mysteries of the universe.
Cycles of Time contains a penetrating analysis of the second law of thermodynamics - according to which the 'randomness' of our world is continually increasing - and a thorough examination of the light-cone geometry of space-time. It combines these two central themes to show how the expected ultimate fate of our accelerating, expanding universe can actually be reinterpreted as the 'big bang' of a new one.
Presenting various standard and non-standard cosmological models, discussing black holes in depth as well as taking in the role of the cosmic microwave background along the way, Roger Penrose argues that the Big Bang was not actually the beginning of everything - nor will it signal the end.
‘Science needs more people like Penrose, willing and able to point out the flaws in fashionable models from a position of authority, and to signpost alternative roads to follow’ Independent

About this title

Review:

"Penrose is truly one of the world's leading mathematical physicists" (Scotland on Sunday)

"Science needs more people like Penrose, willing and able to point out the flaws in fashionable models from a position of authority, and to signpost alternative roads to follow" (Independent)

"A genuinely new idea about the origins of the universe that, although untested, seems to hold together theoretically and must be taken seriously given Penrose's status" (Doug Johnstone Scotsman)

"Cycles of Time can be highly recommended as an example of how cosmologists are now thinking the unthinkable by trying to look back beyond the Big Bang and forward beyond the death of our universe" (Literary Review)

"Cycles of Time is as uncondescending in style and as impenetrable in content as his previous books. Which is not to say that there are not, as before, many pleasures to be had along the way" (Sunday Times)

Book Description:

In his first book since the bestselling The Road to Reality, one of our most distinguished scientists offers a radical new theory of the origin, and ultimate end, of the Universe.

About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0099505940
• ISBN 13: 9780099505945
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304