![]() ![]() ![]() It includes a good history of the development of this science, together with a description of some of the theories. Nobody knows, why the constants of nature have the values they do, whether or not they or the initial cosmological parameters could have been different.Īlthough this book gives a long history of philosophical and theological arguments about the Universe being designed for humans, it does not mention my favorite, from Tom Paine's The Age of Reason: God created the six planets so that humans (as well as the inhabitants of the other planets) could discover the Law of Universal Gravitation, and consequently develop modern science and technology.ĮNGLISH: This is a very hard "popular" book on cosmology. This of course has been controversial ever since this book was published has a paper claiming that the Universe without the weak interaction could still support life and another that criticizes it. Apparently biochemistry requires carbon and oxygen ammonia is sufficiently unlike water and silicon is sufficiently unlike carbon to preclude the development of silicon-based instead of carbon-based life, or ammonia-based instead of water-based life. In fact, physics and cosmology tell us that both the constants of nature and the initial cosmological parameters required for the evolution of any thinking being have to be very precisely the ones we observe: for helium inside stars to be transformed into carbon, a resonant state of carbon-12 must have a mass just above the combined mass of beryllium-8 and helium-4, and for it not to be immediately transformed into oxygen, a resonant state of oxygen-16 must have a mass just below the combined mass of carbon-12 and helium-4. ![]() The authors quote the eighth book of Milton's Paradise Lost, where Adam asks an angel, why the Universe is so large the angel replies, "That Man may know he dwells not in his own - An edifice too large for him to fill, Lodged in a small partition, and the rest Ordained for uses to his Lord best known." The correct answer is that if the Universe were smaller, Adam himself would not exist. This review could not be written if the Milky Way had been the only galaxy in the Universe, since a Universe with only the Milky Way's worth of matter would stop expanding and start collapsing within a month of the Big Bang. This review was also not written during the first million years after the Big Bang, because any being that could conceivably write this review would be composed of solid and liquid matter, and during the first million years after the Big Bang, all matter in the Universe was in the plasma state. Douglas Hofstadter used to be fond of this kind of meaningful self-referential statements. This review was not written by a one-year-old human child because a one-year-old human child's mind is too simple to write this review. The book will be of vital interest to philosophers, theologians, mathematicians, scientists, and historians, as well as to anyone concerned with the connection between the vastness of the universe of stars and galaxies and the existence of life within it on a small planet out in the suburbs of the Milky Way. Tipler-two of the world's leading cosmologists-cover the definition and nature of life, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, and the interpretation of the quantum theory in relation to the existence of observers. Bringing a unique combination of skills and knowledge to the subject, John D. This wide-ranging and detailed book explores the many ramifications of the Anthropic Cosmological Principle, covering the whole spectrum of human inquiry from Aristotle to Z bosons. In its most radical version, the Anthropic Principle asserts that "intelligent information-processing must come into existence in the Universe, and once it comes into existence, it will never die out." Known as the Anthropic Cosmological Principle, this collection of ideas holds that the existence of intelligent observers determines the fundamental structure of the Universe. But in recent years, a startling new concept has evolved that places it more firmly than ever in a special position. ![]() Ever since Copernicus, scientists have continually adjusted their view of human nature, moving it further and further from its ancient position at the center of Creation. ![]()
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