The Universe in a Nutshell
"One of the most influential thinkers of our time, Stephen Hawking is an intellectual icon, known not only for the adventurousness of his ideas but for the clarity and wit with which he expresses them. In this new book Hawking takes us to the cutting edge of theoretical physics, where truth is often stranger than fiction, to explain in laymen's terms the principles that control our universe.". "The Universe in a Nutshell is essential reading for all of us who want to understand the universe in which we live. Like its companion volume, A Brief History of Time, it conveys the excitement felt within the scientific community as the secrets of the cosmos reveal themselves."--BOOK JACKET.
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- Physics & Mathematics - Anyone who seriously pursues these fields learns to embrace the challenges as beautiful and the struggle to unravel their nature as fulfilling. To do this, we embrace the beauty in nature and see the connection with everything around us. Four books come to mind.
Physics:
1. Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Adventures of a Curious Character) by Richard P. Feynman
2. The Universe in a Nutshell by Steven Hawking
Mathematics:
1. Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences by J.A. Paulos
2. Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by D. Hofstadter
These books brilliantly illuminate the beauty in these fields. They show you that underneath all of that complex notation and "math speak" are beautiful ideas about life, the universe, and the nature of reality. These fueled me, even in to my PhD research. I still love them today.
- I won't pick out all of your arguments, but there is an abundance of evidence for the long-term expansion of the universe as measured by redshifted cosmological objects at numerous distances.
Stephen Hawking's The Universe in a Nutshell does a nice job of introducing many of these concepts for those interested.
- these changed almost everything i think about:
misc. Forrest Mims notebooks, the Python Tutorial, Practical C Programming
first chapter of Sound and the Fury, snippets of Naked Lunch, wide swaths of Ulysses
The Universe in a Nutshell, French's Special Relativity
The Gamma Function, a graph theory text whose name i don't remember, baby Rudin
Brain Structure and Its Origins, The Form Within
- "A Brief History of Time" and "Universe in a nutshell" are always there. I never get tired of reading a random page from those books.
I have nothing programming related on my desk; we have Google to thanks for that.
- Stephen Hawking was very special to me. He's a large part of why I chose a life in science in general and physics in particular.
I'm just one of many, but he unmistakably and uniquely affected my life for the better.
Growing up, I read Brief History of Time and Universe In A Nutshell dozens of times each. I relished the jokes I got, and I won't forget him.
I also weep for him, knowing he never got the Nobel prize he wanted so very much.
I haven't shed a tear for many people in their passing, but I have for him.
Thank you for opening my eyes to the wonders of the universe. You are an irreplaceable part of who I have become today.
- 1) The gist is this: Hologram is a 2D picture that encodes a 3D object using light interference.
Holographic principle states that information encodes reality into matter/energy and gravity. Basically gravity, matter and energy are sideffects of information. They are its projections.
How does this relate to hologram? Well dots that might appear like two separated dots on the 3D model, could be encoded on the 2D surface as very close. What this explains is "spooky action at a distance". We perceive two entangled electrons as being far away on a reality hologram, when in reality they are close on the fundamental 2D picture of the world.
Summary: What we perceive and measure as reality is not what reality fundamentally is.
NOTE: This is extremely layman termish and don't be too surprised if it's wrong. I last read UiaN years ago. There are also some other interesting properties, like that the any part of hologram contains whole picture of hologram but of lousier quality, etc.
2) I think Universe in a Nutshell covers most of this theory pretty well.
