We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 October 2009
Chapters 4 and 5 tackled the relativistic and quantum aspects of the universe, in accordance with the two major theories of the age, general relativity and quantum theory. Even though these have enjoyed much success in explaining numerous experiments, as well as observational data, they both have shortcomings and need a more complete synthesis. Supersymmetry, supergravity and even Grand Unification are promising ways to approach this goal but they lack experimental support, being only at the stage of preliminary outlines. However, the cosmologist Dennis Sciama has made this encouraging remark: ‘It is hard to imagine that everything is wrong or illusory. We are witnessing the beginning of a new and imaginative scenario for understanding the universe’.
In Chapter 4 we played the game of trying to understand the universe, and took some risks. It is fun to launch out on a promising track, avoiding the pitfalls for the unwary and sidestepping the dead ends, in order to see if the chosen route will open up new horizons or lead to an impasse. In any case, to accompany a scientific mind voyaging a slightly dangerous but rational course is an interesting pursuit.
Weighing up the Big Bang
The Big Bang scenario, which has already been discussed in this book, has plenty of positive features.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
