Ever since Copernicus, scientists have continually adjusted their view of human nature, moving it further and further from its ancient position at the center of Creation. But in recent years, a startling new concept has evolved that places it more firmly than ever in a special position. Known as the Anthropic Cosmological Principle, this collection of ideas holds that the existence of intelligent observers determines the fundamental structure of the Universe. In its most radical version, the Anthropic Principle asserts that "intelligent information-processing must come into existence in the...

In this eclectic and entertaining study of the interrelationship between the arts and the sciences, Barrow explains how the landscape of the Universe has influenced the development of philosophy and mythology, and how millions of years of evolutionary history have fashioned our attraction to certain patterns of sound and color. Photos, line drawings.

John D. Barrow's Pi in the Sky is a profound -- and profoundly different -- exploration of the world of mathematics: where it comes from, what it is, and where it's going to take us if we follow it to the limit in our search for the ultimate meaning of the universe. Barrow begins by investigating whether math is a purely human invention inspired by our practical needs. Or is it something inherent in nature waiting to be discovered?
In answering these questions, Barrow provides a bridge between the usually irreconcilable worlds of mathematics and theology. Along the way, he treats us to a...

What conceptual blind spot kept the ancient Greeks (unlike the Indians and Maya) from developing a concept of zero? Why did St. Augustine equate nothingness with the Devil? What tortuous means did 17th-century scientists employ in their attempts to create a vacuum? And why do contemporary quantum physicists believe that the void is actually seething with subatomic activity? You ll find the answers in this dizzyingly erudite and elegantly explained book by the English cosmologist John D. Barrow.
Ranging through mathematics, theology, philosophy, literature, particle physics, and cosmology,...

There is no more profound, enduring or fascinating question in all of science than that of how time, space, and matter began. Now John Barrow, who has been at the cutting edge of research in this area and has written extensively about it, guides us on a journey to the beginning of time, into a world of temperatures and densities so high that we cannot recreate them in a laboratory. With new insights, Barrow draws us into the latest speculative theories about the nature of time and the "inflationary universe," explains "wormholes," showing how they bear upon the fact of our own existence, and...

For a thousand years, infinity has proven to be a difficult and illuminating challenge for mathematicians and theologians. It certainly is the strangest idea that humans have ever thought. Where did it come from and what is it telling us about our Universe? Can there actually be infinities? Is matter infinitely divisible into ever-smaller pieces? But infinity is also the place where things happen that don't. All manner of strange paradoxes and fantasies characterize an infinite universe. If our Universe is infinite then an infinite number of exact copies of you are, at this very moment,...

The Holy Grail of modern scientists is The Theory Of Everything, which will contain all that can be know about the Universe - the magic formula that Einstein spent his life searching for and failed to find. Here, the author challenges the quest for ultimate explanation.

What can we never do? The end of each century leads to a stocktaking of human achievement and our expectations about the future. This book looks at what limits there might be to human discovery and what we might find, ultimately, to be unknowable, undoable, or unthinkable.

From the zeros of the mathematician to the void of the philosphers, from Shakespeare to the empty set, from the ether to the quantum vacuum, from being and nothingness to creatio ex nihilo, there is much ado about nothing at the heart of things. Discoveries in astronomy are shown to shed new light on the nature of the vacuum and its dramatic effect on the explanation of the Universe.

The origins of life on earth, the workings of the human mind, the mysteries of the Universe itself--profound questions such as these were once the province of philosophy and theology alone. Today they have become the staple--and indeed the hallmark--of the finest writing about science. And few science writers have tackled the big questions as persistently and as insightfully as astronomer John Barrow.
Now, in Between Inner Space and Outer Space, Barrow brings together dozens of essays that offer a sweeping account of his explorations along the boundary lines of science, philosophy, and...