Synopses & Reviews
Why does space have three dimensions? What would the world look like if the fundamental constants were slightly different? Is the observable universe, our metagalaxy, just a fluctuation of a superuniverse? And what will be the "final scenario"? Answers to these questions have come within the reach of modern science through the growing impact of particle physics on cosmology. Professor Rozental, astrophysicist at the world-famous Space Research Institute in Moscow, has been witnessing this development for years. With this mostly nonmathematical book he has succeeded in providing exciting insights into the micro- and macrocosm and into the science where today ends seem to meet: the cosmology of the very early universe.
Synopsis
In a foreword, an author usually elucidates the aim of his book and describes an idealized reader to whom it is addressed. The first task - the formulation of the scope of the book - is the easier one, for the second one involves assessing a reader's personality, and no specification should warrant the author's being accused of snobbery, underestimating the reader, or other sins of that kind. It is natural to commence with the first task. The last two decades have been marked by extreme, albeit somewhat unexpected, progress in the unifying approaches to fundamental physical theories. During the same time, a reasonably consistent picture of the early stages in the evolution of the Universe, starting from the time' 1 s reckoned from the beginning of its inflation, began to take shape. These questions have been separately treated at very different levels; their systematic presentation is the subject of monographs, sometimes very solid ones, containing many formulas not tractable for a layman.
Table of Contents
Contents: Elementary Particles.- The Universe.- The Universe and the Elementary Particles.- The Beginning and End of the Metagalaxy.