The Book of Nothing: Vacuums, Voids, and the Latest Ideas about the Origins of the Universe

"...ma, lungo la nostra linea d'universo, nella nostra parte d'universo, alla fine ci sarà uniformità, senza stelle e senza vita, per sempre, a quanto pare. Noi non ci saremo. E forse è un bene, dopotutto.", un finale piuttosto inquietante per un saggio, vero? Non vi preoccupate, non si tratta di uno di quei testi apocalittici sul 2012, ma di un serissimo saggio che analizza il concetto di nulla dalle origini fino alle sue più estreme conseguenze.
E' sorprendente come un concetto a noi così familiare abbia tardato così tanto ad affermarsi nelle menti degli uomini, ma è sorprendente soprattutto il fatto che, per quanto mentalmente il nulla ci sia chiaro, siamo ancora lontani dal capire la sua realtà fisica e l'influsso che show more esercita sull'esistenza.
Il saggio è una lunga cavalcata attraverso i concetti di zero, di vuoto e di nulla attraverso i vari filtri dello scibile umano, da quello filosofico, passando per quello matematico, fino a quello fisico e cosmologico (ambito d'elezione dell'autore), e ci mostrerà come il nulla può essere tantissime cose fuorché "niente". show less

If you want to fill your head with trivia to use as a neat party trick, read and retain interesting facts from The Book of Nothing. There is a plethora to chose from. You can start with knowing that a guy named Al-Kharizmi came up with the practice of grouping numerals in threes, separated by commas. Sound familiar? William Shakespeare, if you read his works carefully, explores the concept of nothing in Hamlet, Macbeth, and King Lear. The study of nothing helped scientists to understand barometric pressure. I could go on and on.
In short, The Book of Nothing is the exploration of the concept of nothing from every angle, but with a subtle sense of humor. Don't believe me? Read the notes section of The Book of Nothing and you'll see. show more Barrow's comments are great.
The deepest pleasure I gleaned from reading The Book of Nothing was the myriad of quotations Barrow used from every walk of life. To illustrate his points Barrow quoted philosophers, educators, historians, musicians, artists, playwrights, mathematicians, the BBC, activists, scientists, psychologists, physicists, astronomers, comedians, even a Canadian naval radio conversation (which was my favorite, in case you were wondering). show less

Certainly not nothing, very substantial, starting of with the Greeks through the middle ages to relativity and the whole crew. Some of the mathematical bits were beyond me but otherwise all very clear.
Come away with the impression of the Greeks having a real enquiring mind, then as in the title of the book the church came along and forced the western mind to close for 1000 years and more. Then things opened up again, people started asking real questions again, not just accepting authority. And the pace increased exponentially and is still going on: relativity, quantum theory, AI and more

Ahhh... yes... a wonderful book... How To explain the un-explainable... I find due to the the huge range of interests I explore constantly and the sheer number of books I find per week that I read the back cover, Contents, then read thru the Index for the threads of thought-streams that I flow with... and with good books like this one I find I eventually read the whole book but not necessarily in the same order the Contents invites in a linear fashion... A book well worth exploring... Thank you John D Barrow...

From the zeros of the mathematician to the void of the philosophers, from Shakespeare to the empty set, from the ether to the quantum vacuum, from being and nothingness to creatio ex nihilo, there is much ado about nothing at the heart of things. Recent exciting discoveries in astronomy are shown to shed new light on the nature of the vacuum and its dramatic effect upon the explanation of the Universe.
This remarkable book ranges over every nook and cranny of nothingness to reveal how the human mind has had to make something of nothing in every field of human enquiry.

Ahhh... yes... a wonderful book... How To explain the un-explainable... I find due to the the huge range of interests I explore constantly and the sheer number of books I find per week that I read the back cover, Contents, then read thru the Index for the threads of thought-streams that I flow with... and with good books like this one I find I eventually read the whole book but not necessarily in the same order the Contents invites in a linear fashion... A book well worth exploring... Thank you John D Barrow...

Barrow writes nothing but spendidly interesting and authoritative books. In this case, it is as if he was asked to keep the presentation down to the freshman level.