The Cosmic Landscape

The Cosmic Landscape is a non-fiction popular science book on the anthropic principle and string theory landscape. It is written by theoretical physicist Leonard Susskind. The book was initially published by Little, Brown and Company on December 12, 2005.

The Cosmic Landscape
Hardcover edition
AuthorLeonard Susskind
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
SubjectPhysics
GenreNon-fiction
PublisherLittle, Brown and Company
Publication date
December 12, 2005
Media typePrint
Pages416 pages
ISBN978-0316155793
Followed byThe Black Hole War 

Background

At the time the book was written, it had been noted that the conditions of the Universe are very fine tuned, allowing life. However, at the same time it is unknown why. The Anthropic principle was one solution, but was rejected by many physicists who preferred a more elegant solution. String theory was then created, but allowed too many solutions. Then, in the book, Susskind hypothesized that there are multiverses where there are occasional universes where life is indeed possible. He calls this multiverse the "landscape".[1]

Contents

Susskind writes in the preface that the book is mainly about "the scientific explanations of the apparent miracles of physics and cosmology and its philosophical implications".[2] The book deals with the Anthropic principle. The earlier chapters deal with topics such as quantum electrodynamics, Feynman diagrams and quantum chromodynamics. Later on, the cosmological constant is introduced and problems with the amount of energy produced from virtual particles. String theory is also introduced and the black hole war.

The book emphasizes the theory of a "landscape" with many universes out there. Instead of the fact that the Universe is somehow just perfect for life, the truth is that "it's not that the universe is somehow contorting itself to accommodate us; it's just a diverse place and we find ourselves in a friendly corner".[1]

Critical reception

The book has received favorable critical reception. Choice Review praised the way the "nuances" are presented and called the book "a stimulating, semi-popular book that presents an excellent, descriptive tutorial of modern physics and cosmology".[3] Booklist noted that the book was "of utmost significance to science readers" and how "in this extraordinary work, Susskind ushers us to the mind-bending edge of a possible paradigm shift".[3] Publishers Weekly believed that Susskind was able to guide readers into the Anthropic Principle. The reviewer then stated that "persistent readers will finish this book understanding and caring about contemporary physics in ways both unexpected and gratifying".[3] Library Journal said that the book is able to explain String Theory and how it can unite general relativity and quantum mechanics together. The reviewer recommended the book to "science collections in academic and larger public libraries".[3]

gollark: That doesn't actually help with *arranging them onscreen*.
gollark: No.
gollark: Also, Python libraries generally seem to be imperative stuff with a thin OOP veneer which makes it slightly more irritating to use.
gollark: ```Internet Protocols and Support webbrowser — Convenient Web-browser controller cgi — Common Gateway Interface support cgitb — Traceback manager for CGI scripts wsgiref — WSGI Utilities and Reference Implementation urllib — URL handling modules urllib.request — Extensible library for opening URLs urllib.response — Response classes used by urllib urllib.parse — Parse URLs into components urllib.error — Exception classes raised by urllib.request urllib.robotparser — Parser for robots.txt http — HTTP modules http.client — HTTP protocol client ftplib — FTP protocol client poplib — POP3 protocol client imaplib — IMAP4 protocol client nntplib — NNTP protocol client smtplib — SMTP protocol client smtpd — SMTP Server telnetlib — Telnet client uuid — UUID objects according to RFC 4122 socketserver — A framework for network servers http.server — HTTP servers http.cookies — HTTP state management http.cookiejar — Cookie handling for HTTP clients xmlrpc — XMLRPC server and client modules xmlrpc.client — XML-RPC client access xmlrpc.server — Basic XML-RPC servers ipaddress — IPv4/IPv6 manipulation library```Why is there, *specifically*, **in the standard library**, a traceback manager for CGI scripts?
gollark: ```Structured Markup Processing Tools html — HyperText Markup Language support html.parser — Simple HTML and XHTML parser html.entities — Definitions of HTML general entities XML Processing Modules xml.etree.ElementTree — The ElementTree XML API xml.dom — The Document Object Model API xml.dom.minidom — Minimal DOM implementation xml.dom.pulldom — Support for building partial DOM trees xml.sax — Support for SAX2 parsers xml.sax.handler — Base classes for SAX handlers xml.sax.saxutils — SAX Utilities xml.sax.xmlreader — Interface for XML parsers xml.parsers.expat — Fast XML parsing using Expat```... why.

See also

References
  1. Ross, Greg. "An interview with Leonard Susskind » American Scientist". American Scientist. Retrieved 2 October 2010.
  2. Susskind, Leonard (December 2005). The Cosmic Landscape: String Theory and the Illusion of Intelligent Design (First ed.). Little, Brown.
  3. "Reviews: The cosmic landscape BETA". catalog.dclibrary.org. Retrieved 21 September 2010.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.