Max Tegmark
Hardcover | Pages: 432 pages Rating: 4.17 | 4818 Users | 489 Reviews
Details Appertaining To Books Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality
| Title | : | Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality |
| Author | : | Max Tegmark |
| Book Format | : | Hardcover |
| Book Edition | : | First Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 432 pages |
| Published | : | January 7th 2014 by Allen Lane (first published January 7th 2012) |
| Categories | : | Science. Nonfiction. Physics. Mathematics. Philosophy |
Rendition Supposing Books Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality
Our Mathematical Universe is a journey to explore the mysteries uncovered by cosmology and to discover the nature of reality. Our Big Bang, our distant future, parallel worlds, the sub-atomic and intergalactic - none of them are what they seem. But there is a way to understand this immense strangeness - mathematics. Seeking an answer to the fundamental puzzle of why our universe seems so mathematical, Tegmark proposes a radical idea: that our physical world not only is described by mathematics, but that it is mathematics. This may offer answers to our deepest questions: How large is reality? What is everything made of? Why is our universe the way it is?Table of Contents
Preface
1 What Is Reality?
Not What It Seems • What’s the Ultimate Question? • The Journey Begins
Part One: Zooming Out
2 Our Place in Space
Cosmic Questions • How Big Is Space? • The Size of Earth • Distance to the Moon • Distance to the Sun and the Planets • Distance to the Stars • Distance to the Galaxies • What Is Space?
3 Our Place in Time
Where Did Our Solar System Come From? • Where Did the
Galaxies Come From? • Where Did the Mysterious Microwaves
Come From? • Where Did the Atoms Come From?
4 Our Universe by Numbers
Wanted: Precision Cosmology • Precision Microwave-Background Fluctuations • Precision Galaxy Clustering • The Ultimate Map of Our Universe • Where Did Our Big Bang Come From?
5 Our Cosmic Origins
What’s Wrong with Our Big Bang? • How Inflation Works • The Gift That Keeps on Giving • Eternal Inflation
6 Welcome to the Multiverse
The Level I Multiverse • The Level II Multiverse • Multiverse Halftime Roundup
Part Two: Zooming In
7 Cosmic Legos
Atomic Legos • Nuclear Legos • Particle-Physics Legos • Mathematical Legos • Photon Legos • Above the Law? • Quanta and Rainbows • Making Waves • Quantum Weirdness • The Collapse of Consensus • The Weirdness Can’t Be Confined • Quantum Confusion
8 The Level III Multiverse
The Level III Multiverse • The Illusion of Randomness • Quantum Censorship • The Joys of Getting Scooped • Why Your Brain Isn’t a Quantum Computer • Subject, Object and Environment • Quantum Suicide • Quantum Immortality? • Multiverses Unified • Shifting Views: Many Worlds or Many Words?
Part Three: Stepping Back
9 Internal Reality, External Reality and Consensus Reality
External Reality and Internal Reality • The Truth, the Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth • Consensus Reality • Physics: Linking External to Consensus Reality
10 Physical Reality and Mathematical Reality
Math, Math Everywhere! • The Mathematical Universe Hypothesis • What Is a Mathematical Structure?
11 Is Time an Illusion?
How Can Physical Reality Be Mathematical? • What Are You? • Where Are You? (And What Do You Perceive?) • When Are You?
12 The Level IV Multiverse
Why I Believe in the Level IV Multiverse • Exploring the Level IV Multiverse: What’s Out There? • Implications of the Level IV Multiverse • Are We Living in a Simulation? • Relation Between the MUH, the Level IV Multiverse and Other Hypotheses •Testing the Level IV Multiverse
13 Life, Our Universe and Everything
How Big Is Our Physical Reality? • The Future of Physics • The Future of Our Universe—How Will It End? • The Future of Life •The Future of You—Are You Insignificant?
Acknowledgments
Suggestions for Further Reading
Index
Declare Books As Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality
| ISBN: | 1846144760 (ISBN13: 9781846144769) |
| Edition Language: | English URL http://www.penguin.co.uk/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9781846144769,00.html |
Rating Appertaining To Books Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality
Ratings: 4.17 From 4818 Users | 489 ReviewsArticle Appertaining To Books Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality
Before I begin, a brief word about physics from a ninja.This is a book of speculative physics. At the same time it is a mostly lucid walkthrough of the latest theories in physics. It's important to distinguish between theories and speculation. Theories are directly testable. Results of the theories are repeatable. Special and General Relativity are examples of theories that have been demonstrated over and over again. A result is calculated from the theory, an experiment is performed...theOur Mathematical UniversebyMax TegmarkMax Tegmark, a physics professor at MIT, is a leading proponent of the idea of the multiverse, familiar to many as the parallel worlds of science fiction, but taken increasingly seriously by sober scientific theorists. Several variations on the theme tell us that there must be an infinite number of versions of our Universe (capital U), other universes (small u), some indistinguishable from our own, some with minor differences, many with significant
A Wild Ride With Mad MaxAlfred North Whitehead famously said that philosophy is a series of footnotes to Plato. Welcome to yet another footnote, as the thesis of this book, in the authors words, can be viewed as a form of radical Platonism, asserting that all the mathematical structures in Platos realm of ideas exist out there in a physical sense. In other words, there is no physical reality, just pure mathematics.This book is a fun ride for those with a reasonable understanding of physics, as
I really wanted to like this book.The promise of tying together concepts of modern physics with mathematics and a philosophy of what life and the universe are all about kept me going.I did appreciate the enthusiasm and energy that Tegmark has for his field. Unfortunately, this came through a bit too often as being full of himself.When it got to layman's term explanations of quantum physics and relativity, the wording was either too brief or too obscure. I recognized that a lot has been
I find myself in the strange position of awarding five stars to a book that has plenty of content with which I disagree. The detail of that will come up later, but the reason that I can still confidently give this book five stars is that it is a great read, covers some less controversial aspects of physics and cosmology very well and where Max Tegmark strays into concepts that many don't accept, he does so in a way that really makes you think, and analyse just why these concepts seem so unlikely
The Mind of GodIt starts with Plato, this idea that the universe is a mathematical expression, populated by objects which are (often imperfect) copies of abstract forms (the most perfect of which are numbers), which in turn interact according to strict rules of geometry and aesthetic necessity.* More importantly it was Plato who suggested that things are not what they seem. What we are able to perceive are distorted manifestations of eternal truths which are permanently beyond our grasp, leaving
This is a complex and very interesting book, addressing many important questions about the fundamental nature of reality. The author adopts (and convincingly explains) a particular version of mathematical Neo-Platonism stating that reality is essentially nothing but mathematical structures. His position might be classified as a form of mathematical monism (as it essentially denies ontological reality to anything except mathematical objects). From a philosophical perspective, the author can be
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