Penguin science
4 total works
Molecular biology is one of the great modern sciences. Headline-making developments in cloning, genetic engineering and the fight against disease all stem from the breakthrough in the 1950s and 60s of the identification of the molecule of life, DNA. This book sets out to tell the entire story of evolution: from Darwin to DNA and beyond, giving full credit to the role of quantum physics in our modern understanding of life itself, including human life.
Once the stuff of science-fiction novels, black holes, and their even stranger cosmologican counterparts, white holes and wormholes, are now the subject of serious inquiry. Physicists who formerly shunned these astrophysical eccentricities have begun to theorize about them and search for the physical proof of their existence with the zeal of converts. The unavoidable conclusion of this research is that these "rips in the fabric of spacetime" are not only real, they might actually provide a passage to other universes and travel through time. This book tells the story of the theories and discoveries that have led scientists to these conclusions.
Drawing on the latest measurements of the "ripples in time" that mark the birth of the universe, the author of this book goes beyond the Big Bang to address the questions of how and why the universe came into being, and what its future and evolution holds in store. His controversial contention is that the universe itself can be regarded as a living entity which is not unique, but has evolved through Darwinian selection among a multitude of rival universes competing for existence in spacetime.
The Stuff of the Universe
by John Gribbin, Martin J. Rees, and John Gribben
Published 29 January 1990
In this exploration of our relationshop with the universe, the authors search for the grand design of the universe and the meaning of the so-called coincidences that allow life to exist on our planet. They present the latest advances in understanding of the nature of dark matter, explore mini and massive black holes, brown dwarfs and novel forms of matter such as quarks and quark nuggets. They discuss the search for a unified theory of all the particles and forces of nature: cosmic strings, superstrings and the possibility of a theory of everything. The authors also speculate on the possibility of the existence of other universes and of other intelligent life in our own.