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The Five Ages of the Universe: Inside the Physics of Eternity

by Fred Adams, Greg Laughlin (Author)

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2644100,067 (4)2
As the twentieth century closed, Fred Adams and Greg Laughlin captured the attention of the world by identifying the five ages of time. In The Five Ages of the Universe, Adams and Laughlin demonstrate that we can now understand the complete life story of the cosmos from beginning to end. Adams and Laughlin have been hailed as the creators of the definitive long-term projection of the evolution of the universe. Their achievement is awesome in its scale and profound in its scientific breadth. But The Five Ages of the Universe is more than a handbook of the physical processes that guided our past and will shape our future; it is a truly epic story. Without leaving earth, here is a fantastic voyage to the physics of eternity. It is the only biography of the universe you will ever need.… (more)
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English (3)  Finnish (1)  All languages (4)
Showing 3 of 3
Not quite 4 stars - perhaps because it was written 20 years ago and covers a lot of ground I have read about already (although I'm not claiming to understand it). A valuable lesson in timescales and size as the knowable universe both gets bigger and we see more of it. Or might be valuable if we last long enough! I really like the idea of cosmological decades where the first 10 billion is the first decade, the next 100 billion is the second and so on. Gave me a nice feel for how young the universe is at 14 billion years and the earth being four and a half billion - but I need to brush up on just how much bigger a billion is than a million. Billions frighten me a lot - think I'll order Tim Hardford's book 'How to Make the World Add Up'. ( )
  Ma_Washigeri | Jan 23, 2021 |
Stealth-reading this guy right now, but I really don't want to add it to "currently reading" because I'm already in the middle of too many books.
  lightkensei | May 17, 2020 |
An interesting paragraph from the book; ".... the fact emerges that our universe does indeed have the proper special features to allow for our existence. Given the laws of physics, as they are determined by the values of the physical constants, the strengths of the fundamental forces, and the masses of elementary particles, our universe naturally produces galaxies, stars, planets, and life. With only a slightly different version of the physical laws, our universe could have been completely uninhabitable and astronomically impoverished." They ask why it's this way.

The vast scales of evolution in space and time are very well explained. e.g. towards the Dark Era single positron particles (the remnants of protons) will each be alone in a space 10 power 104 times larger than our present universe. Unimaginably large and empty .

The earth has existed for the cosmologically miniscule time of 4.6 billion years but at least for 4 billion of these, life has been thriving as shown by fossils in the worlds' oldest known sedimentary rocks. However, it's only in the last instants of this time that humans (and the scientific method ) have arrived and a text like this can be written.

Highly recommended as a unique book. ( )
  Miro | Dec 31, 2007 |
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Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Adams, FredAuthorprimary authorall editionsconfirmed
Laughlin, GregAuthormain authorall editionsconfirmed
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As the twentieth century closed, Fred Adams and Greg Laughlin captured the attention of the world by identifying the five ages of time. In The Five Ages of the Universe, Adams and Laughlin demonstrate that we can now understand the complete life story of the cosmos from beginning to end. Adams and Laughlin have been hailed as the creators of the definitive long-term projection of the evolution of the universe. Their achievement is awesome in its scale and profound in its scientific breadth. But The Five Ages of the Universe is more than a handbook of the physical processes that guided our past and will shape our future; it is a truly epic story. Without leaving earth, here is a fantastic voyage to the physics of eternity. It is the only biography of the universe you will ever need.

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