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Books > Science & Mathematics > Astronomy, space & time > Cosmology & the universe
Prior to the 1920s it was generally thought, with a few exceptions,
that our galaxy, the Milky Way, was the entire Universe. Based on
the work of Henrietta Leavitt with Cepheid variables, astronomer
Edwin Hubble was able to determine that the Andromeda Galaxy and
others had to lie outside our own. Moreover, based on the work of
Vesto Slipher, involving the redshifts of these galaxies, Hubble
was able to determine that the Universe was not static, as had been
previously thought, but expanding. The number of galaxies has also
been expanding, with estimates varying from 100 billion to 2
trillion. While every galaxy in the Universe is interesting just by
its very fact of being, the author has selected 60 of those that
possess some unusual qualities that make them of some particular
interest. These galaxies have complex evolutionary histories, with
some having supermassive black holes at their core, others are
powerful radio sources, a very few are relatively nearby and even
visible to the naked eye, whereas the light from one recent
discovery has been travelling for the past 13.4 billion years to
show us its infancy, and from a time when the Universe was in its
infancy. And in spite of the vastness of the Universe, some
galaxies are colliding with others, embraced in a graceful
gravitational dance. Indeed, as the Andromeda Galaxy is heading
towards us, a similar fate awaits our Milky Way. When looking at a
modern image of a galaxy, one is in awe at the shear wondrous
nature of such a magnificent creation, with its boundless secrets
that it is keeping from us, its endless possibilities for harboring
alien civilizations, and we remain left with the ultimate knowledge
that we are connected to its glory.
Prior to the 1920s it was generally thought, with a few exceptions,
that our galaxy, the Milky Way, was the entire universe. Based on
the work of Henrietta Leavitt with Cepheid variables, astronomer
Edwin Hubble was able to determine that others had to lie outside
our own. This books looks at 60 of those that possess some unusual
qualities that make them of particular interest, from supermassive
black holes and colliding galaxies to powerful radio sources.
This book presents a vivid argument for the almost lost idea of a
unity of all natural sciences. It starts with the "strange" physics
of matter, including particle physics, atomic physics and quantum
mechanics, cosmology, relativity and their consequences (Chapter
I), and it continues by describing the properties of material
systems that are best understood by statistical and phase-space
concepts (Chapter II). These lead to entropy and to the classical
picture of quantitative information, initially devoid of value and
meaning (Chapter III). Finally, "information space" and dynamics
within it are introduced as a basis for semantics (Chapter IV),
leading to an exploration of life and thought as new problems in
physics (Chapter V). Dynamic equations - again of a strange (but
very general) nature - bring about the complex familiarity of the
world we live in. Surprising new results in the life sciences open
our eyes to the richness of physical thought, and they show us what
can and what cannot be explained by a Darwinian approach. The
abstract physical approach is applicable to the origins of life, of
meaningful information and even of our universe.
Before Paulo Coelho and Eckhart Tolle came Rodney Collin. A huge
462 page book full of essential knowledge. How To Become
Supernatural Man, The Universe and Cosmic Mystery is an exploration
of the universe and man's place in it. Rodney Collin examines
20th-century scientific discoveries and traditional esoteric
teachings and concludes that the driving force behind everything is
neither procreation nor survival, but expansion of awareness.
Collin sets out to reconcile the considerable contradictions of the
rational and imaginative minds and of the ways we see the external
world versus our inner selves. For readers familiar with
Gurdjieff's cosmology will here find further examinations of the
systems outlined in by Ouspensky in Search of the Miraculous.
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