Paul J Steinhardt and Neil Turok

Endless Universe

The idea that the universe started with a big bang, including a period of inflation, is the consensus view amoungst cosmologists today. However, Paul J Steinhardt and Neil Turok think differently. In Endless Universe: Beyond the Big Bang they describe their alternative, Ekpyrotic model. Here the universe consists of two branes, and what we know as the big bang was actually the result of these colliding. This caused them to move apart, but eventually they will approach each other again, and the whole story will begin again. Hence the universe did not begin with the big bang- this is just one of a possibly infinite number of cycles.

The book examines the properties of both the inflationary big bang model and the ekpyrotic model, and along the way the authors describe their involvement in the coming together of particle physics and cosmology. The important thing to note is that this is not just an idle speculation - the ekpyrotic model agrees with current observations just as well as the inflationary big bang model. Most importantly, the authors look forward to the improvements in observations which will happen over the next few years, and should be able to decide between the two. The book is written in an easy to read style, and is not too technical. Hence I'd recommend it to anyone with an interest in cosmology, as a pointer to a possible shake-up in the subject in a few years time.

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Hardcover 304 pages
ISBN: 0385509642
Salesrank: 28126
Weight:1.2 lbs

Published: 2007 Doubleday

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Hardcover 304 pages
ISBN: 0297845543
Salesrank: 238425
Weight:1.32 lbs

Published: 2007 Weidenfeld & Nicolson

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Hardcover 304 pages
ISBN: 0385509642
Salesrank: 69304
Weight:1.2 lbs

Published: 2007 Doubleday

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Product Description
Two world-renowned scientists present an audacious new vision of the cosmos that “steals the thunder from the Big Bang theory.” —Wall Street Journal The Big Bang theory—widely regarded as the leading explanation for the origin of the universe—posits that space and time sprang into being about 14 billion years ago in a hot, expanding fireball of nearly infinite density. Over the last three decades the theory has been repeatedly revised to address such issues as how galaxies and stars first formed and why the expansion of the universe is speeding up today. Furthermore, an explanation has yet to be found for what caused the Big Bang in the first place. In Endless Universe, Paul J. Steinhardt and Neil Turok, both distinguished theoretical physicists, present a bold new cosmology. Steinhardt and Turok “contend that what we think of as the moment of creation was simply part of an infinite cycle of titanic collisions between our universe and a parallel world” (Discover). They recount the remarkable developments in astronomy, particle physics, and superstring theory that form the basis for their groundbreaking “Cyclic Universe” theory. According to this theory, the Big Bang was not the beginning of time but the bridge to a past filled with endlessly repeating cycles of evolution, each accompanied by the creation of new matter and the formation of new galaxies, stars, and planets. Endless Universe provides answers to longstanding problems with the Big Bang model, while offering a provocative new view of both the past and the future of the cosmos. It is a “theory that could solve the cosmic mystery” (USA Today).

Product Description

Two world-renowned scientists present an audacious new vision of the cosmos that “steals the thunder from the Big Bang theory.” —Wall Street Journal

The Big Bang theory—widely regarded as the leading explanation for the origin of the universe—posits that space and time sprang into being about 14 billion years ago in a hot, expanding fireball of nearly infinite density. Over the last three decades the theory has been repeatedly revised to address such issues as how galaxies and stars first formed and why the expansion of the universe is speeding up today. Furthermore, an explanation has yet to be found for what caused the Big Bang in the first place.

In Endless Universe, Paul J. Steinhardt and Neil Turok, both distinguished theoretical physicists, present a bold new cosmology. Steinhardt and Turok “contend that what we think of as the moment of creation was simply part of an infinite cycle of titanic collisions between our universe and a parallel world” (Discover). They recount the remarkable developments in astronomy, particle physics, and superstring theory that form the basis for their groundbreaking “Cyclic Universe” theory. According to this theory, the Big Bang was not the beginning of time but the bridge to a past filled with endlessly repeating cycles of evolution, each accompanied by the creation of new matter and the formation of new galaxies, stars, and planets.

Endless Universe provides answers to longstanding problems with the Big Bang model, while offering a provocative new view of both the past and the future of the cosmos. It is a “theory that could solve the cosmic mystery” (USA Today).

Instead of the big bang, it was more like the big crunch *****
"Endless Universe - Beyond the Big Bang" by Dr. Paul J. Steinhardt and Dr. Neil Turok." Can any one tell me please how much distance there is between the dimensional membranes (brains)? I can't find a physicist that seems to know! Each new scientific data point seems to throw a curve ball on our best laid plans and theories. The newest discovery (announced Sept 2008) that our universe seems to be rushing into a suck-hole by some "unseen force" at 2-million miles an hour, really puts a crimp in Steinhardt and Turok thesis of two flat planes ("brains" - short for membrains) of energy colliding in multiple points on a large scale ever trillion years and starting us all over again. I liked their idea and fair treatment of the scientific method (conjecture, observation, proof) and new interpretation for old and new data. But how can we possibly integrate in these latest released observations of the giant suck-hole way, way out there on the edge? http://www.peaceandconflictresolution.org/

Instead of the big bang, it was more like the big crunch *****

"Endless Universe - Beyond the Big Bang" by Dr. Paul J. Steinhardt and Dr. Neil Turok." Can any one tell me please how much distance there is between the dimensional membranes (brains)? I can't find a physicist that seems to know!

Each new scientific data point seems to throw a curve ball on our best laid plans and theories. The newest discovery (announced Sept 2008) that our universe seems to be rushing into a suck-hole by some "unseen force" at 2-million miles an hour, really puts a crimp in Steinhardt and Turok thesis of two flat planes ("brains" - short for membrains) of energy colliding in multiple points on a large scale ever trillion years and starting us all over again.

I liked their idea and fair treatment of the scientific method (conjecture, observation, proof) and new interpretation for old and new data. But how can we possibly integrate in these latest released observations of the giant suck-hole way, way out there on the edge?

http://www.peaceandconflictresolution.org/

Cosmology in a scientific process ****
The book presents an interesting alternative to the mainstream theory of the inflationary big bang cosmology. It even indicates possibilities for experimentally deciding between the two theories. What also discerns this book from many popular science books is that the two authors present not only their ideas, but also tha path by which these were reached. This not only makes the book very readable, but is also demonstrates the trial and error process which characterizes real science.

Cosmology in a scientific process ****

The book presents an interesting alternative to the mainstream theory of the inflationary big bang cosmology. It even indicates possibilities for experimentally deciding between the two theories.
What also discerns this book from many popular science books is that the two authors present not only their ideas, but also tha path by which these were reached. This not only makes the book very readable, but is also demonstrates the trial and error process which characterizes real science.

An infinitely old universe? *****
The big bang theory of the origin of the universe has been almost unchallenged for about half a century. Once the discovery of cosmic background in 1963 disposed of the steady-state model proposed by Fred Hoyle and Thomas Gold in the 1950s, it was essentially the only game in town. Oscillatory models never entirely went away, but the inflationary model seemed to explain nearly all the data. At the same time it had some flaws that would not go away: it left the first second after the big bang a total mystery; it left the highly homogeneous distribution of matter and energy after the violent beginning unexplained; it seemed to require absurdly precise values for the physical constants (giving apparent support to the "strong anthropic principle", allowing some physicists to claim that the universe must have been designed by an external intelligence so that it could have us living in it); it failed to explain the origin of the "dark energy" driving the expansion; and so on. Any one of these difficulties could probably be explained away in terms of incomplete knowledge and understanding, but taken together they require so many arbitrary assumptions that it becomes hard to escape the conclusion that the big bang universe has become a patchwork of arbitrary assumptions, added ad hoc to cope with a series of problems. Paul Steinhardt and Neil Turok have developed an alternative way of seeing the universe, in which the big bang was not the beginning but simply a cataclysmic moment in a history of cycles, with no beginning and no end, and in their book they explain all this in terms that are by no means too difficult for the non-physicist to understand. Their model explains everything that the inflationary model explains, but it does so on the basis of fewer and less arbitrary assumptions. It is too soon to feel confident they are right, but if they are right they provide two comforting thoughts for non-physicists: we no longer need to think of time as something that began for unexplained reasons 14 billion years ago, but can return to thinking of it as something that stretches as far back into the past and future as we like to consider, and we don't have to take the strong anthropic principle as a serious argument for an intelligent designer. This is a book that I enjoyed enormously. If I could give it six stars I would.

An infinitely old universe? *****

The big bang theory of the origin of the universe has been almost unchallenged for about half a century. Once the discovery of cosmic background in 1963 disposed of the steady-state model proposed by Fred Hoyle and Thomas Gold in the 1950s, it was essentially the only game in town. Oscillatory models never entirely went away, but the inflationary model seemed to explain nearly all the data. At the same time it had some flaws that would not go away: it left the first second after the big bang a total mystery; it left the highly homogeneous distribution of matter and energy after the violent beginning unexplained; it seemed to require absurdly precise values for the physical constants (giving apparent support to the "strong anthropic principle", allowing some physicists to claim that the universe must have been designed by an external intelligence so that it could have us living in it); it failed to explain the origin of the "dark energy" driving the expansion; and so on. Any one of these difficulties could probably be explained away in terms of incomplete knowledge and understanding, but taken together they require so many arbitrary assumptions that it becomes hard to escape the conclusion that the big bang universe has become a patchwork of arbitrary assumptions, added ad hoc to cope with a series of problems.

Paul Steinhardt and Neil Turok have developed an alternative way of seeing the universe, in which the big bang was not the beginning but simply a cataclysmic moment in a history of cycles, with no beginning and no end, and in their book they explain all this in terms that are by no means too difficult for the non-physicist to understand. Their model explains everything that the inflationary model explains, but it does so on the basis of fewer and less arbitrary assumptions. It is too soon to feel confident they are right, but if they are right they provide two comforting thoughts for non-physicists: we no longer need to think of time as something that began for unexplained reasons 14 billion years ago, but can return to thinking of it as something that stretches as far back into the past and future as we like to consider, and we don't have to take the strong anthropic principle as a serious argument for an intelligent designer.

This is a book that I enjoyed enormously. If I could give it six stars I would.

A Convincing Alternative to Conventional Wisdom *****
Steinhardt and Turok masterfully outline and simplify their "cyclic model" of the universe in Endless Universe. This book could also serve as an introduction to M Theory, which unifies numerous string theories. Even if you don't buy their theory, you should buy this book because it addresses a number of issues that the traditional big bang theory (or the "inflationary model") fails at answering or explaining. Although the authors' own theory seems a bit far fetched (the first two stages of the model take only a few billion years while the "dark energy" stage takes a trillion), it is a needed rebuttal to the shortcomings of the inflationary model.

A Convincing Alternative to Conventional Wisdom *****

Steinhardt and Turok masterfully outline and simplify their "cyclic model" of the universe in Endless Universe. This book could also serve as an introduction to M Theory, which unifies numerous string theories. Even if you don't buy their theory, you should buy this book because it addresses a number of issues that the traditional big bang theory (or the "inflationary model") fails at answering or explaining. Although the authors' own theory seems a bit far fetched (the first two stages of the model take only a few billion years while the "dark energy" stage takes a trillion), it is a needed rebuttal to the shortcomings of the inflationary model.

Great read! *****
Great read on a great subject and a fast read! Not only does this book contain a lot of info on the evolution of the universe, it also touches on the exciting ideas of M-theory and "branes", flurting the idea that two, higher dimensional, branes may have collided to create the beginning of our universe. But, as you'll see, it may NOT have been THE beginning as we think of it!!! Unlike some other popular reads, this book is pretty focused on the Big Bang vs. the "Big Splat"... Very interesting for anyone looking for a focused read on THE BEGINNING. Highly recommended. The tone of the book is great and easy to read.

Great read! *****

Great read on a great subject and a fast read!
Not only does this book contain a lot of info on the evolution of the universe, it also touches on the exciting ideas of M-theory and "branes", flurting the idea that two, higher dimensional, branes may have collided to create the beginning of our universe. But, as you'll see, it may NOT have been THE beginning as we think of it!!! Unlike some other popular reads, this book is pretty focused on the Big Bang vs. the "Big Splat"... Very interesting for anyone looking for a focused read on THE BEGINNING. Highly recommended. The tone of the book is great and easy to read.

Fascinating *****
Anyone interested in cosmology (the large-scale structure of space and time - including the question about the beginning of time) should read this book. It describes, in a very interesting way, a cyclic universe alternative to the prevailing cosmological orthodoxy of the Big Bang being followed by a period of Inflation (in which space is stretched incredibly huge in the merest instant of time). The cyclic universe model also has a Big Bang, but dispenses with the need for Inflation. In fact the model has a whole series of Big Bangs. This may sound like rather ancient metaphysics, but the authors review how it is a plausible consequence of very contemporary mathematics known as M-theory, which involves multi-dimensional [mem]branes. There's no mathematics in the book, but there's plenty of pictures, so it's accessible to lay readers. What's really intriguing is that the idea may have observational consequences. The book has value in highlighting some significant issues with Inflation, and in giving fascinating accounts of the development of cosmological theories

Fascinating *****

Anyone interested in cosmology (the large-scale structure of space and time - including the question about the beginning of time) should read this book. It describes, in a very interesting way, a cyclic universe alternative to the prevailing cosmological orthodoxy of the Big Bang being followed by a period of Inflation (in which space is stretched incredibly huge in the merest instant of time).

The cyclic universe model also has a Big Bang, but dispenses with the need for Inflation. In fact the model has a whole series of Big Bangs. This may sound like rather ancient metaphysics, but the authors review how it is a plausible consequence of very contemporary mathematics known as M-theory, which involves multi-dimensional [mem]branes.

There's no mathematics in the book, but there's plenty of pictures, so it's accessible to lay readers. What's really intriguing is that the idea may have observational consequences. The book has value in highlighting some significant issues with Inflation, and in giving fascinating accounts of the development of cosmological theories