The World Within the World

by John D. Barrow

Book Overview

"The supreme task of the physicist," Einstein said, "is to arrive at those universal elementary laws from which the cosmos can be built up by pure deduction." In The World Within the World, eminent astronomer John Barrow offers a thought-provoking examination of the premise behind Einstein's remark. Are there really laws of Nature that exist independently of human thought? Is it possible to discover a Grand Unification Theory? Indeed, is it possible...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0198519796
• ISBN13: 9780198519799
• Release Date: August 1988
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 416 Pages
• Weight: 0.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.5" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

World within the World

I really can't add much to what the other two reviewers (as of this date 01-03-2008) have said. However, I will say that I just a month ago finished this book. I was fortunate to find it at a library book sale for $1.50. I'm very impressed with Dr. Barrow's works and this is the best by far (of the three or four that I've read). However, that may be because my interest is in the foundations and questions that arise from the foundations, such as, what is mathematics, why does it describe (or, seemingly describe) the universe that we know so well, what is its reality? While not at an extremely deep philosophical level (for example, if you've ever tried Sartre Being and Nothingness, you'll know what I mean by "deep", even if you don't agree with the philosophy), he pulls no punches and you do really have to be interested or you'll be bored. I wasn't bored. I do have a feeling (I've looked only at the contents) that his newest book (New Theories of Everything), rather than being so much an update to his Theories of Everything, is more an update of World within the World. If you are interested in this topic, you might try the new one. You might then also want to obtain and read this one even if I'm correct. I do hope this is helpful.

The World with the World

The World Within the World written by John D. Barrow is a book about the laws of Nature and explains why things are as they are. This book presents a wide-ranging interdisciplinary study of the evolving concept of the laws of Nature. Chaos, black holes, inflation and superstrings are just some of the subjects that are given attention to in this book. Also, mathematical topics are discussed and why this is important to philosophers and scientists, but ever mindful that the reader may not have a serious science background, the author discuses these new ideas in a serious but nontechnical style.In this book the aim is not simply to pick again upon one of these esoteric fields at the frontiers of fundamental science and attempt to expalin it in simple terms. Rather, it is to pick upon the traitional unspoken assumptions to which we owe all these abstract and pragmatic developments: that the Universe is ordered, that it is logical, that it is mathematical, that it is predictable, that it is governed by something outside ourselves which is the same everywhere, but which has a deep resonance with the workings of our own minds: to explore something of the origin and possible meanings of the idea that there exist "laws of Nature" and some of the unsuspected realms that such an idea has led us.So, with this being said, I found that unless you have some science background you will not get much use from this book as it is. Also, there is a message in the book, although laws of Nature may be necessary for such grand explanations, broken symmetries, organizing principles, selection effects, and human categories of thought all play essential and irreductible role in augmenting any law of Nature to determine a picture of the Universe in which we live.This book has seven parts and each of these has various topics that are discussed in detail, giving the reader a dose of historical context along with cutting edge science. From inner space to outer space, there are mathematical laws of Nature that explain what nature is. A changeless world of order and certainty, impartial to our actions and desires.I found the book can get difficult at times and I had to stop and ruminate, contemplate, and engage in serious thought... not that that wasn't a good thing. This is a book that will make you think.

The author that discovered himself

Judging from my own experience of reading such serious science books, it may be important to gain readers' attention by some measures like nice design, adequate amount of book, and easy vocabularies. At my first glance through this small and thick book, the contents seem to be too much for readers to concentrate. As a whole, this must be one of Barrow's magnificent books. Especially, the subtiles with the quotations of the famous persons are very impressive. This book also leads me to more deeply understand what made me confusing in terms of some new cencepts. I hope his another version of simpler edition will come to public sooner or later.

The Universe that discovered itself: Why this name?

I do not understand why this book deserves a diferent name other than "The World within the World", being just a second edition with minor changes. I bought the book via internet, but if I had had the opportunity to revise it in a bookstore, surely I would not buy it. Two sections has been eliminated from the original, and five has been added (twenty pages or so) in this new version. If you realize that the book contains over a hundred sections,you will be convinced that the changes are too few to justify another title. The new sections are: The second string revolution; Questions abot the superfuture; Time travel; The outer limit; Cosmology, stars and the life. The contents of these sections are included in others of the (excellents) books written by Barrow. For example, the section Time Travel is contained in the section "Time Travel: is the universe safe for historians?" from the book "Impossibility: The Limits of Science and the Science of Limits" (Oxford U. P. 1998). Summarizing, if you never read "The world within the world" (Oxford U. P., 1998), you now have a good opportunity to enjoy it in its update version; otherwise, it is preferable to purchase "Pi in the Sky", "Impossibility" or anyone of the tantalizing publications from this great writer.I rate this book with five stars, the same stars corresponding to "The world...", because is the same wonderful book.

Excellent exploration of philosophy, cosmology, and physics

The World Within the World is a rich and engaging exploration of the concept of laws of nature. Combining cosmology, relativity, quantum mechanics, philosophy of science, and philosophy of mathematics, Barrow asks fundamental questions about the nature of reality and the limits of human understanding: Are there really laws of nature existing independently of us that have been discovered by scientific method, or are the laws we've developed simply the result of order being imposed on the chaotic phenomena of experience by our categories of thought and perception? Why are the laws of nature written in the language of mathematics? Are mathematical laws merely the best approximations we can come up with of a deeper underlying reality which may be non-mathematical? What limits on our understanding of the universe does the mathematical nature of such laws present? For example, do there exist laws of nature which are expressed in terms of non-computable equations whose complexity is so great that they cannot be solved within the lifetime of the universe? If such non-computable laws do exist, we could never discover them due to their inherent complexity.The World Within the World also addresses some other interesting philosophical questions that have been inspired by developments in modern physics. For example, within the infamously counter-intuitive world of quantum mechanics we find that when neutrons are fired at a screen with two openings, even when fired one at a time, they arrive at a target screen behind the double-slit screen like particles would be expected to, making distinct hits on the target screen, yet creating an overall interference pattern which is exhibited in wave phenomena such as water or sound waves. When golf balls are 'fired' in this way through a double-slit screen they do not create an interference pattern. This wave-particle duality is often taught to be a characteristic of light, but it applies to all elementary particles on the subatomic scale. Water and sound waves are waves of a medium--of water and air, respectively. But what does it mean to say that light or a neutron is a wave when these can exist in a vacuum? They are not waves of a medium; rather, they are waves of probability--of information--telling us the probability of finding a photon or a neutron in a particular place when we make a measurement. Heisenberg's Uncertainty principle also tells us that when we try to measure both the position and momentum of a particle, not only are we incapable of measuring both simultaneously, but, far more incomprehensibly, both the position and momentum cannot exist at the same time! This implies that such properties, which we are inclined to think of as inherent properties of the particles, do not exist until they are measured. This is known as the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum mechanics, which holds that particles are really nothing more than probability wave functions that expand in