Space, the bad news (and some limited good news)

[Martin]

Discussion in another thread reveals that there don't seem to be any good recent books on cosmology (since 2005) accessible to wide audience. There is that extremely helpful Scientific American article by Lineweaver called Misconceptions about the Big Bang, that a lot of SFN members have recommended and I hope everyone has read.

 

This MaBB SciAm article is a must!

http://www.astro.princeton.edu/~aes/AST105/Readings/misconceptionsBigBang.pdf

 

The article is great about classicl practical observational cosmology stuff (recession speeds, redshifts, how to picture expansion...) but it doesn't treat quantum cosmology. By which I mean models of events right at the BB, conditions before and leading up to the BB. Classical cosmology breaks down at the Big Bang, so you have to shift gears into Quantum Cosmology (QC).

 

QC is a fairly new field, although some ideas go back 10 years or more. And it is changing rapidly.

 

So once you have read the Lineweaver MaBB article, and are still wondering what is thought to have preceded the expansion that we see, where do you go?

 

The answer is not entirely satisfactory. You can try this: Go to the local library and request that the library order this new book that is scheduled to come out July 1. The book book is EXPENSIVE which is why I say ask the public or school library to order it.

 

The bad news is there doesn't seem to be anything recent and decent, at least that is affordable.

 

I'd say the top expert today in quantum cosmology is an Indian man named Abhay Ashtekar. He's a good popular writer/lecturer as well as top QC expert. He could write a good book that would fill this gap. But he's obviously busy. He has a team at Penn State that is getting research results and publishing rapidly in the professional journals. That's their realworld job, popular writing gets low priority.

 

The limited good news is that Rudy Vaas, a German science writer who happens to be friends with Ashtekar, has assembled this book which tries to include all the recognized approaches. It brings them all together with chapters written by a number of different QC, string, and inflation experts.

 

So even though the book is probably out of most people's price range, I will describe it. A 600-page book is now available for pre-order at Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Big-Bang-Prospects-Collection/dp/3540714227/

 

The editor, Rudy Vaas, has tried to cover the whole spectrum of ideas about what could have preceded the Big Bang and caused it to happen. He has invited 20-some prominent physicist/cosmologist experts to contribute chapters.

 

The publisher is Springer Verlag in German. Here is Springer's page about the book:

http://www.springer.com/astronomy/general+relativity/book/978-3-540-71422-4

 

Here is a Springer page that gives a condensed version of the TABLE OF CONTENTS

http://www.springer.com/astronomy/general+relativity/book/978-3-540-71422-4?detailsPage=toc

 

- Introduction.

- Eternal Inflation and the Vilenkin-Borde-Guth theorem.

- The Self-Reproductive Universe: Chaotic Inflation.

- Issues in Inflation.

- The Big Bounce Model: Avoiding the Big Bang Singularity in General Relativity.

- The Emergent Universe: Expansion from a stationary state.

- Quantum Cosmologies - Once and now.

- Instanton models, many histories and the problem of time.

- The Fluctuating Universe: Thermodynamics, Cosmology, and the Arrow of Time.

- Loop Quantum Cosmology I: Avoiding the Big Bang Singularity from First Principles.

- Loop Quantum Cosmology II: Effective theories and oscillating universes.

- Cosmic Darwinism: A universal differential selfreproduction via Black Hole-Big Bangs.

- The Pre-Big Bang Model: How String Cosmology reaches for an eternal past.

- The Cyclic Universe: Brane Cosmology, Dark Energy, and the eternal (?) recurrence of Big Bang/Big Crunch oscillations.

- String Cosmology Scenarios and the Quest for the Big Bang.

- The Stringscape.- The Self-Created Universe: A Time-Loop instead of a Beginning?.

- The Quasi-Steady-State Universe: An alternative to the Big Bang Cosmology?.

- Laws of nature: Eternal and creative?.

- Eternal Existence: The ultimate future of the Cosmos

======================

 

The Amazon page has a pretty cogent description of the book.

http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Big-Bang-Prospects-Collection/dp/3540714227/

I will quote some

 

==quote==

Product Description

 

The Big Bang model is now both theoretically and empirically well established. However, the very beginning of our universe still remains mysterious. [Classical] General Relativity breaks down at very small spatio-temporal scales and at high energy densities. That is why Quantum Cosmology is needed. Recent developments open up the exciting new prospect of going "beyond" the Big Bang and even finding a physical explanation for it. Surprisingly, the ancient idea of a past-eternal universe is being revived, and fascinating new approaches are also being developed. This book provides an up-to-date overview of the competing scenarios in cosmology and discusses their foundations, implications, and philosophical aspects. It gathers original contributions from the world's leading researchers in Quantum Cosmology, who describe their own work and results in a manner understandable even to non-specialists.

 

 

About the Author

 

* Philosopher of science (Center for Philosophy and Foundations of Science, University of Gießen)

* Astronomy and physics editor of bild der wissenschaft, one of the largest/most influential monthly science magazines in Germany

* Many contributions to cosmology and philosophy of science and nature

 

 

==endquote==

Edited May 31, 2008 by Martin

[iNow]

Thanks Martin. Your input is awesome! I have to wonder, though, if maybe this thread would be better in the new book forum? Either way, your reading suggestions are worth notice and attention, and are appreciated. Thanks again.

[Martin]

Thanks Martin. Your input is awesome! I have to wonder, though, if maybe this thread would be better in the new book forum? Either way, your reading suggestions are worth notice and attention, and are appreciated. Thanks again.

 

I appreciate the kind words, iNow.

Actually I didn't intend the whole thread to be about the two sources I mentioned in the first post!

 

What I want to lay out and chew over is what are the available sources overall. So I'm preparing a followup which is not about books, but other sources.

 

And I'm not talking about sources for someone who is already reading advanced stuff and learning on their own.

What got me started on this was encountering people whose ideas about space and matter seem to come from places like Stephen Hawking and Brian Greene.

 

What can we say to these people? What is there that will be readable and that will show them other parts of the contemporary cosmology picture?

 

the fact is there is a huge LACK of some book that is since 2005 and sketches out the mainstream no-singularity cosmology approaches. It would be a book that does mainstream cosmology (like Lineweaver SciAm does it) but WITH a later section or chapter on quantum cosmology.

 

So we have a serious problem. Newbies come here, having seen something on the Discovery channel, or read a popular book written before 2000 say. How can we offer them a pleasant way to get up to speed?

 

I mentioned the Vaas book in the first post, but I actually think recommending the Vaas book is not an option. It is too expensive and only parts of it fill the bill. It will, I suspect, have many parts that are for-specialists-only. Not safe to recommend.

 

Anyway, I'm glad for your response iNow. It helps keep me working on this.

Edited May 31, 2008 by Martin
multiple post merged

[doG]

What I want to lay out and chew over is what are the available sources overall.

 

Might I suggest The SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System as one. The SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS) is a Digital Library portal for researchers in Astronomy and Physics, operated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) under a NASA grant. The ADS maintains three bibliographic databases containing more than 6.9 million records: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Physics, and arXiv e-prints.

[Martin]

Great suggestion!

That's the Harvard data base. I make frequent use of that myself. The ADSABS part.

Use the search tool to dig up abstracts.

 

It is good to list resources that sophisticated users and employ, as well.

But at the moment my main concern is newbies.

 

We should figure out some way that a newcomer could get some good out of one of these databases. Maybe think up a search-engine experiment. Do this and see what you get.

 

If you happen to think of something revelatory along those likes doG, I hope you post it.

=================

 

just for completeness, here is doG's link

http://adswww.harvard.edu/index.html

Here is the sitemap

http://doc.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs_doc/site_map/

Here is the search tool

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html

If you check the PHYSICS AND GEOPHYSICS box then it will search that part of the database and find all the articles with a given bunch of keywords

If you check the ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS box then it will search that part instead.

 

There is a whole skill of doing keyword searches that one learns. These engines are different from Google. They access the professional literature. You get different hits and different options. Maybe some branch of Google imitates them but I don't know about it. Google scholar?

Does Google scholar rank hits by citation count?

===========================

Here's another resource along the same lines as what doG suggested

http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/

 

And here is a "getting to know the database" introductory search experiment that newcomers could try.

The first post mentioned the importance of QUANTUM COSMOLOGY, because Classical GR cosmology fails right at the big bang.

I guess the brief Amazon description of that book discussed it.

 

So use the search engine to get you RECENT QUANTUM COSMOLOGY PAPERS ranked by number of times the paper has been cited in other research

 

this link will show you what you have to type into the search engine to get that, and what results

http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/hep/www?rawcmd=FIND+DK+QUANTUM+COSMOLOGY+AND+DATE+%3E+2005&FORMAT=www&SEQUENCE=citecount%28d%29

you can substitute K for DK and it's about the same. K stands for keyword and DK is a special class of keywords, which they list for you in the HELP section, so you can choose from the DK menu. There are different options in the SORT box. I've chosen sort by citation count. That way the papers that the research community thinks are especially significant/useful come up first.

 

This could be an introduction to who Abhay Ashtekar is, although you may never have encountered him in science popularization books.

 

I chose "date > 2005" for the date cutoff. If you reach farther back in time, like "date > 2004" or "date > 2003" you will begin to see more familiar names, like Hawking. Nothing BY him unless you go WAY back, but references to Hawking wave function of the universe etc.

 

I hope some people try the Spires search tool. It can be fun learning how to use it.

 

======================

======================

 

I think I've found a draft of the "Cyclic Universe" chapter by Paul Steinhardt at his website

http://wwwphy.princeton.edu/~steinh/

It is only available in PDF

http://wwwphy.princeton.edu/~steinh/vaasrev.pdf

Edited June 1, 2008 by Martin
multiple post merged

[antimatter]

Can you recommend anymore books that I can cite on SFN without being eaten alive by angry posters?

[Martin]

Can you recommend anymore books that I can cite on SFN without being eaten alive by angry posters?

 

LOL!!! Finding up-to-date books is really a problem, antimatter!

 

There is a huge lag between the research publications (which are free PDF) and the popularization wide-market books.

 

It would be great if you could acquire the knack of reading current research literature, they often have introduction and conclusion sections which are non-mathematical.

 

Then there are the expensive scholarly books that are only 2 to 4 years out of date, but they are expensive.

 

Universe or Multiverse? by Bernard Carr editor (articles by Nobel laureates etc) already in print

 

Beyond the Big Bang, edited by Rudy Vaas (chapters by top experts)

publ July 2008

 

Approaches to Quantum Gravity, edited by Dan Oriti (top expert collection) publ Feb 2009

 

books are expensive and parts of some chapters are too technical to read, but many of the chapters are available free PDF online as preprints

 

you wouldn't find a Brian Greene article in any of these, but you'd find stuff by reputable people with something cutting edge to say

 

=================

then there is the popular market, and AFAICS it is pretty hopeless. I keep looking at the lists on Amazon.

Steinhardt is the only recent thing. and his brane-clash cosmology is not especially representative of the field!

 

So if you mean what popular wide-market books? I am afraid the answer is no. I can't suggest any others. Sorry, maybe someone else can.

 

I'll be busy for a few days but when I get time I will try to coach anyone who wants in how to get free PDF up-to-date science articles which are part readable (parts not too technical). If someone else who knows the ropes wants to do some coaching it would be great.