Rating: Summary: Big bang - then inflation. Review: Big bang, inflation and slower paced expansion seem to properly describe developing stages of our visible Universe today. This book has been completed just before science accepted "dark energy" as a main ingredient of the Universe and discovery of its current accelerating expansion. Concept that our Universe grew very early out of rapid inflation is very successful in explaining the flatness, the large scale uniformity of space and origin of visible matter in it, but lacks direct evidence and requires huge extrapolation of laws of physics. But, never mind: Alan Guth, internationally recognized theoretical physicist and leading actor of the Inflationary Universe theory, writes with passion about his career, mathematical intricacies leading to his proposal in 1979 and further modifications. You will learn about life, work and personalities of many top cosmologists including father of the big bang George Gamow, master of the black holes Steven Hawking and finally Paul Stainhardt and Andrei Linde - both contributors to advanced forms of inflationary postulate. They all try to shed some light on the events taking place when Universe lasted only the tiniest fraction of a second. Could it start from nothingness devoid of matter and space? How about eternally existing multiverses, false vacuum and gravity having negative energy? Are we living in a very tiny corner of the much, much larger cosmos than anyone ever suspected? Alan Guth's masterpiece represents everything in one volume: classic physics refreshing course, update on particle physics, introduction to modern theoretical cosmology, summary of knowledge derived from observing stars, galaxies and cosmic background radiation, and plans for future projects involving new satellite missions. These satellites will deliver new data and most likely confirm predictions of Inflation theory. Overall, what I liked the most was a successful attempt to explain role of Higgs particles and very helpful 3D drawings of their energy fields. Higgs fields suppose result in certain kind of particles important for complete understanding of Standard Model of particle physics. Do not hesitate; even now after three years since being published, "The Inflationary Universe" is still a marvelous, definitely not outdated popular science book full of surprises and mind twisting speculations.
Rating: Summary: Guth is a wonderful physicist and historian Review: Guth has a gift for inspiring us young physicists! Through his tale of mediocrity to discovery and greatness, Guth shows us how following through with good ideas really works in physics. "The Inflationary Universe," however, incorporates history as only a minor part of it. Guth describes the physics of a 'false vacuum,' conservation of baryon number, Higgs fields, monopoles, and many other concepts usually difficult to grasp. He shows how these ideas can give us a better and perhaps correct way of seeing the universe at its birth --- and he poses many more questions, like whether our universe is just one of many, and what the implications of that would be (as in, could it be that in different universes the laws of physics are different?). Although his explanation of 'symmetry breaking' as kind of a crystallization was disappointing, perhaps that is due not to him, but to the incomplete physics behind grand unified theories. Overall, an excellent and thought-provoking book.
Rating: Summary: Fantastic Review: Guth has developed a theory that would normally be impossible for one to understand. However, his writing style is both scientific history and autobiography. The book unfolds in such an easy manner that anyone who carefully reads this book can walk away with a comprehension of the most complex theories developed by cosmologists. His book takes the reader step by step from classical science through Einstein to quantum theory. His own theory of an inflationary universe is fascinating. His theory has proved to stand up over time to each problem and question that has arisen. I strongly recommend this book to anyone interested in understanding how the big bang theory can be so widely accepted. It also summarizes the many interesting lives of scientists who have developed these theories. What a treasure Guth is for America!
Rating: Summary: Fantastic Review: Guth has developed a theory that would normally be impossible for one to understand. However, his writing style is both scientific history and autobiography. The book unfolds in such an easy manner that anyone who carefully reads this book can walk away with a comprehension of the most complex theories developed by cosmologists. His book takes the reader step by step from classical science through Einstein to quantum theory. His own theory of an inflationary universe is fascinating. His theory has proved to stand up over time to each problem and question that has arisen. I strongly recommend this book to anyone interested in understanding how the big bang theory can be so widely accepted. It also summarizes the many interesting lives of scientists who have developed these theories. What a treasure Guth is for America!
Rating: Summary: Origins of the Universe Review: I always enjoy reading books about scientific discoveries by authors who were there. Alan H. Guth's book "The Inflationary Universe" not only provides a revealing look at the development of inflationary theories of the universe, it is by far the best explanation on the subject that I've seen for the general scientifically literate public.Guth starts almost at the beginning of modern science by laying a foundation of understanding in conservation laws and fields. His explanation (supported by further information in an appendix) of the negative energy of gravitational fields is clear and intuitive. So clear are his explanations that one hardly seems surprised when Guth introduces Edward Tryon's early speculation that the universe may have originated from a quantum vacuum fluctuation. Next, Guth develops the idea of an expanding universe, and the flatness problem. His explanation of why the flatness problem is a problem at all is concise and wonderfully illustrated. Throughout all of this, Guth offers a rare glimpse into the workings of science by showing the chaotic effects of unpredictable chance occurrences that lead to that rare insight with its attendant "ahhhh" at the end of discovery. I particularly enjoyed the photographs he included of many key players in the developments of modern cosmology, with a singular exception. There is no photograph of Guth himself [this is my only complaint about the book]. Leading up to the discussion of inflation proper, Guth offers clear and insightful discussions of the discovery of the microwave background radiation. He offers rare insights into the extraordinarily difficult measurements that led to the first discovery, culminating with the superb measurements and confirmation provided by COBE in 1990. As further preparatory information, Guth offers one of the best general-purpose science explanations I've seen for the particles in the standard model, including some very good descriptions of the Higgs particle, which plays a central role in the theory of inflation. Guth is proof that complicated theories can be reduced to simple ideas without losing the essential logical constructs that make them work. The second half of the book deals with inflation proper. Here, Guth explains how inflation solves the flatness problem, and deals with such things as monopoles, and the nearly uniform background radiation. The end of the book deals with the aftermath of discovery, and the problems with inflation yet to be ironed out. The author discusses many esoteric possibilities, including percolation of false-vacuum bubbles, event horizons, and pocket universes. If the origins of the universe excite your intellectual fancy, I highly recommend "The Inflationary Universe." Duwayne Anderson
Rating: Summary: Great reading ! Review: I've loved to read this book, because it has this double face: on one hand it is a very readable and fascinating popular introduction to a piece of current research, namely inflation, by one of its main actors, something that doesn't really happen all too often. On the other hand, it is about the personal story of that same actor, (A. Guth), so that one gets a feeling of the life of a young scientist. Each of the faces would make a good book ; here you get both in one volume.
Rating: Summary: Very good. Review: Inflation is one of the greatest ideas in cosmology. If proven to have happened, then Alan Guth will probably receive the Nobel prize. The Inflationary Universe is a nice book to learn a lot of physics. It is on par with "The Elegant Universe," which has become a best seller at Amazon.com. There is a nice chapter on Inflation in "The Bible According to Einstein" in verse. I highly recommend that book for those interested in a narrative account of the history of the universe. Guth provides a lot of insight into the life of an ambitious post doctorate in particle physics. Only he is able to tell the story of how he arrived at the idea of inflation. I was surprised to find out that one of his co-workers, Henry Tye, played such an important role, but missed out of becoming one of the authors of inflation because he went away on a trip. One weak point of the book is that wordy paragraphs replace what would normally be equations. These paragraphs are hard to read. Guth probably should have replaced such sections with highly intuitive descriptions or skipped them altogether. A reader can skip these technical sections and enjoy the rest of the book, which is excellent.
Rating: Summary: Worth your time and attention Review: Particle physicist and cosmologist Alan Guth has a very logical mind. This is not surprising, since it was his painstaking and persistent analysis of magnetic monopole production in grand unified theories that led him, step by step, to one of the great breakthroughs of 20th-century science, the discovery of the cosmic inflation that conjured our universe out of a speck of vacuum far smaller than a proton.
Guth's systematic, thorough qualities come through in _The Inflationary Universe_, his 1997 history of the discovery of inflation. He starts at the beginning, with the principles of conservation, Newtonian and relativistic views of space, time, matter and gravity, quantum theory, the discovery of the expanding universe, etc. It's not until Chapter 10, 167 pages into the book, that Guth starts to explain inflation.
It's well worth the wait. I found his explanations thoughtful and lucid. For readers who want more detail, he provides even more thorough explanatory footnotes, endnotes, a very helpful glossary, and appendices on why the energy of a gravitational field is negative, Newton's idea of an infinite static universe, blackbody radiation, and units and measures.
Of course the book is now eight years old. Guth mentions the possibility that the rate of expansion of the universe is speeding up, which we now know to be the case from observations that came out a year or two after his book. And he just touches on string theories.
On the other hand, Guth's speculations at the end of the book on the existence of an infinite number of universes, and on the possibility that a super-advanced technology could be used to create new universes, are as clear, convincing and mind-bending as any I've read.
Anyone who takes the time to read the entire book will come away with a very solid and authoritative understanding of the development of modern cosmology from its roots to the current bouquet of inflationary theories.
I recommend it strongly to readers who want a deeper understanding of cosmology, both in terms of the history of the field, and the underlying physics.
Robert Adler, author of _Science Firsts: From the Creation of Science to the Science of Creation_ (Wiley, 2002); and _Medical Firsts: From Hippocrates to the Human Genome_ (Wiley, 2004).
Rating: Summary: A Brilliant Look at Real Science Review: Some very good books on science focus mainly on detailing a particular scientific discovery or discoveries. Some very good science books do their best to communicate with a general audience concerning ideas that can be highly technical. What is rarer is a science book that does both of these within the framework of what it is really like to live and work as a scientist. The amazing book The Double Helix by James Watson which describes the quest for the structure of DNA is one of these. So is this book by Alan Guth on the development of the inflationary universe theory as a "correction" to Big Bang theory. In this book Guth takes us through the basics of the Big Bang theory and then into the idea of inflation--what it is and how it goes along with Big Bang theory. He takes a wonderful historically-developed approach and he does this without the help of (at least as far as I can recall) a single equation in the body of the text. Instead, he uses basic numerical analysis and the help of a number of graphs and illustrations to develop these complex ideas into a very readable explanation. He is also very frank in warning the reader of difficult concepts and directing the less detail-minded to skipping around. All of this makes for a good science read; however, what I really enjoyed about this book is how he brings out the things that really drive real science, particularly when he reaches those investigations into which he was personally involved. He points out how theory and experiment drive each other. He isn't afraid to show the fights for priority and reputation that often push scientists. He lets us see how the desperation for a secure job, the cockiness of the young researcher and the ego of established names is often the engine for discovery. Anyone interested in the current state of research into the origins of our universe would be remiss in not reading this book. Many people get the gist of Big Bang theory but fewer understand what Big Bang theory is really about and fewer still understand why the inflationary universe has become so important in recent years. This book will clear away all the fog; in particular, Guth is very clear in explaining the problems with Big Bang theory (the horizon problem, magnetic monopoles, etc.) that are cleared-up with the inflation approach. More than this, however, the reader will gain real insight into what it is like to be a working scientist. It offers a peak at its excitements and disappoints, even a glimpse at the clashes and in-fighting. Many people often get the idea that science makes grand pronouncements of fact from on high. This book shows that science is, in reality, a continuing struggle for a more and more accurate picture of our universe and how it works. It is a view worth seeing.
Rating: Summary: Cosmic Masterpiece! Review: Thanks to Dr. Guth for trying to explain the Cosmology, Theory of Inflation in simple terms. Of course it sounds simple, after all there is a whole theory behind it and this book is written in paperback without any single formula. It is a good book for popular scientist, with this book you learn a littel more about the cosmological theories which Inflation is one of them. Due to the difficulty of the subject the teacher had to go into concepts that sound simple judging from the name but extremely diffcult to comprehend.If you know about the subject and most importanatly the tools of the trade, you understand better each sentence otherwise you just get the flare of it. The book is the only as far as I know in this field written at this level as a story and especially by one of the founders of the theory, reminds me the book Hawkigns Universe, simplified very difficult concepts.
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