The Whole Shebang: A State of the Universe(s) Report by Timothy Ferris, Simon & Schuster. $25, 393 pages.
The News & Observer
July 20, 1997
The state of the universe(s)
By Phillip Manning
Hordes of people jammed bookstores a few years back to buy Stephen
Hawking's best seller, "A Brief History of Time." Based
on my unscientific polling, few people read the entire book, and
even fewer understood it. I was not among the understanders. Cosmology,
it seemed, was going to have to careen along without me. Now comes
"The Whole Shebang," a book that fulfills the promise
that Hawking's book proffered.
"The Whole Shebang" is a stunning achievement, the best
popular-science book I've read in years. Ferris -- author of numerous
books, including the award-winning "Coming of Age in the
Milky Way" -- is witty, scientifically accurate, literate,
and, most importantly, clear. He refuses to patronize the reader
by oversimplifying his topic. He starts with the geocentric cosmology
of Aristotle, then hurtles through Ptolemy, Copernicus, Galileo,
and Newton. By the middle of the first chapter, he is into Einstein's
general theory of relativity. A page or two later, he explores
the big bang theory, which arose from the astronomer Edwin Hubble's
1929 discovery that the universe was expanding.
In the ensuing chapters, he explains black holes, wormholes, and
dark matter. He gently introduces us to galaxies, galaxy clusters,
and superclusters, which leads into the origin of the universe,
superstring theory, and the possible existence of parallel universes.
After a lucid introduction to quantum physics, Ferris then tells
us how we humans fit into the scheme of things. He ends the book
with a chapter on what the science of cosmology tells us about
God. His conclusion is succinct and clear: "Sadly, but in
all earnestness, I must report, the answer as I see it is: Nothing."
In addition to explaining cosmology, Ferris sketches wonderful
thumbnail portraits of the men behind the science. Hubble, for
example, "affected the lordly demeanor of a Picasso or Toscanini,
and took readily to the role that befell him once he became the
most esteemed observational astronomer of his generation."
He describes Hawking as a "fiercely committed intellectual
with little of the nice guy about him." He then quotes Hawking
as saying, "All I'm concerned about is being right."
Niels Bohr, the great Danish physicist, "was too serious
to be pompous and too honest to be facile." Bohr's habit
of speaking his mind often got him into trouble when talking to
nonscientists. Churchill suggested he ought to be "confined."
And after listening to Bohr for 30 minutes, secretary of state
Dean Acheson said: "Professor Bohr, there are three things
I must tell you at this time. First, whether I like it or not,
I shall have to leave you at three for my next appointment. Secondly,
I am deeply interested in your ideas. Thirdly, up to now I have
not understood a single word you have said."
Some of Ferris's best writing is in the chapter called "Quantum
Weirdness." He takes us into the murky world of the Copenhagen
interpretation of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, where
information appears to pass between photons at speeds exceeding
the speed of light -- a violation of Einstein's special theory
of relativity. This paradox led Nobel Prize winner Richard Feynman
to conclude that quantum theory was "absurd." He then
added: "And it agrees fully with experiment. So I hope you
can accept nature as she is -- absurd."
Ferris concludes the chapter with the conundrum facing today's
physicists. Classical physics assumes "locality," which
specifies that changes in systems are caused by direct physical
contact or through the action of force fields. Quantum systems
appear to be "nonlocal." "They act," Ferris
says, "like an intimately connected whole, regardless of
whether their parts are far removed from each other." That
means, he says, "that fiddling with one particle over here
can instantly influence its sister particle over there."
Because a nonlocal universe is foreign to most of us, many scientists
(including Einstein) have tried to sweep quantum weirdness under
the rug. But no worthwhile alternatives have been proposed. So,
as physicist David Peat puts it, "The choice before us is
either to abandon any hope of knowing the nature of quantum reality
or to accept a nonlocal universe."
No book on cosmology would be complete without examining the question,
Are we alone? "I'm sure they're out there," says physicist
Paul Horowitz of Harvard, who operates a radio telescope that
listens for signals from extraterrestrial life forms. But another
Harvard scientist declares that the search "is a deplorable
waste of taxpayers' money." Ferris neatly resolves the dispute.
We should continue such projects, he says, "because receipt
of a signal would solve the riddle, while if we don't listen we
shall have relinquished all hope of solving it."
Ferris also deals directly with the issue of why we should continue
to explore the universe. He begins by quoting T.S. Eliot: "We
shall not cease from exploration/And the end of all our exploring/Will
be to arrive where we started/And know the place for the first
time." Ferris then concludes: "For to know our place,
we must know the place, cellar to ceiling, from taproots to the
stars, the whole shebang."
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