Journeying though the shamanistic world, from the Himalayas to the jungles of Peru, Fred Alan Wolf encountered strange phenomena---natural healing, firwalking, shape-shifting, near-death and out-of-body experiences, visions of the past and future, time traveling, and lucid dreaming---that seemingly could not be reconciled with his training as a theoretical physicist. |
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Publisher: Harper Perennial; Revised edition (January 25, 1989)
ISBN: 978-0060963101
This book entertainingly traces the history of physics from the observations of the earlyGreeks through the discoveries of Galileo and Newton to the dazzling theories of such scientists as Planck, Einstein, Bohr, and Bohm. This humanized view of science opens up the mind-stretching visions of how quantum mechanics, God, human thought, and will are related, and provides profound implications for our understanding of the nature of reality and our relationship to the cosmos.
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Publisher: Woodbridge Group (December 1997)
ISBN: 978-1889964072
For centuries, humankind has tried to navigate between scientific and spiritual conceptions of reality often without much success. In the resultant confusion scientists philosophers and theologians have pondered and argued-yet the separation remains. Norman Friedman correlates the quantum physics of David Bohm with the Perennial Philosophy described by Aldous Huxley and the spiritual insights of the channelled entity known as Seth to show how a single reality emerges from seemingly contradictory perspectives-a brilliant synthesis.
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There is an ill-concealed skeleton in the closet of physics: "As they are currently formulated, general relativity and quantum mechanics cannot both be right." Each is exceedingly accurate in its field: general relativity explains the behavior of the universe at large scales, while quantum mechanics describes the behavior of subatomic particles. Yet the theories collide horribly under extreme conditions such as black holes or times close to the big bang. Brian Greene, a specialist in quantum field theory, believes that the two pillars of physics can be reconciled in superstring theory, a theory of everything.
Superstring theory has been called "a part of 21st-century physics that fell by chance into the 20th century." In other words, it isn't all worked out yet. Despite the uncertainties--"string theorists work to find approximate solutions to approximate equations"--Greene gives a tour of string theory solid enough to satisfy the scientifically literate.
Though Ed Witten of the Institute for Advanced Study is in many ways the human hero of The Elegant Universe, it is not a human-side-of-physics story. Greene's focus throughout is the science, and he gives the nonspecialist at least an illusion of understanding--or the sense of knowing what it is that you don't know. And that is traditionally the first step on the road to knowledge. --Mary Ellen Curtin --This text refers to the hardcover edition.
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©2001-2010 N. Franken. All Rights Reserved. |
