Nothing: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)

Nothing: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)

Frank Close

0 /

0

0 comments

How much do you like this book?

What’s the quality of the file?
Download the book for quality assessment

What’s the quality of the downloaded files?

What is ‘nothing’? What remains when you take all the matter away? Can

empty space – a void – exist? This Very Short Introduction explores the

science and the history of the elusive void: from Aristotle who insisted

that the vacuum was impossible, via the theories of Newton and

Einstein, to our very latest discoveries and why they can tell us

extraordinary things about the cosmos.

Frank Close tells the

story of how scientists have explored the elusive void, and the rich

discoveries that they have made there. He takes the reader on a lively

and accessible history through ancient ideas and cultural superstitions

to the frontiers of current research. He describes how scientists

discovered that the vacuum is filled with fields; how Newton, Mach, and

Einstein grappled with the nature of space and time; and how the

mysterious ‘aether’ that was long ago supposed to permeate
the void may now be making a comeback with the latest research into the ‘Higgs field’.

We

now know that the vacuum is far from being empty – it seethes with

virtual particles and antiparticles that erupt spontaneously into being,

and it also may contain hidden dimensions that we were previously

unaware of. These new discoveries may provide answers to some of

cosmology’s most fundamental questions: what lies outside the universe,

and, if there was once nothing, then how did the universe begin? click to read more

Categories:
Physics

Year:
2009

Publisher:
Oxford University Press, USA

Language:
english

Pages:
177

ISBN 10:
0199225869

ISBN 13:
9780199225866

Series:
Very Short Introductions

File:
PDF, 1.22 MB