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Few questions grip the mind more forcefully than those about
the creation of the universe, and since the discoveries of the 1920s it has been
a primary goal of physicists to trace the history of the universe back to "where
it all came from" -- the moment of creation in the Big Bang. This is the
up-to-date story of the enormous growth in knowledge of the early universe and
the important discoveries about that titanic explosion that took place 15 billion
years ago. Professor James S. Trefil explains how the
billions of galaxies in the universe are all undergoing a universal expansion,
and by reversing that expansion we can trace back through the "ages of the
universe," from 500,000 years to 3 minutes to .001 seconds to 10 -43
seconds of the Big Bang -- the latter so short an interval that our concept of
time may have to be redefined. Professor Trefil also describes the basis for field
theories, but realizing that not every reader may wish to go through all the detailed
arguments involved in establishing those theories, he has provided a "fast
track" of summaries at the ends of these chapters for those who want to get
on to the description of the early universe. Part Three
of The Moment of Creation takes us into previously uncharted territory
with our new understanding of the grand unified theories. There we see the various
freezings the universe underwent, how it tunneled out of a false vacuum, the search
for relic particles, and the solutions to the problems of antimatter, galaxy formation,
horizons, and flatness -- all of which bring is tantalizingly close to our goal
of reaching the moment of creation. Lastly, once we have
reached back to the first moment, we realize that we must ask new questions, such
as what happened before the Big Bang and, in effect, why the universe exists at
all. The Moment of Creation ends its journey with a fascinating change
in our focus of inquiry, from where we came from to where we are going -- what
will be the ultimate fate of the universe. James S.
Trefil is a professor of physics at the University of Virginia and has been teaching
beginning students about physics for fifteen years. He is also an officer and
founding member of the Society for Scientific Exploration, and the author of two
physics textbooks and more than a hundred articles for professional journals.
He has also written for such popular magazines as Smithsonian, Science
82, and Popular Science. His other books include the highly acclaimed
From Atoms to Quarks, Are We Alone? (with Robert T. Rood), and,
most recently, The Unexpected Vista. He lives near the Blue Ridge in Virginia.
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