Paradox
The Nine Greatest Enigmas in Physics
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3.9 • 40 Ratings
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- £7.99
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- £7.99
Publisher Description
Jim Al-Khalili is about to untangle the world's greatest science conundrums...
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How does the fact that it gets dark at night prove the Universe must have started with a big bang?
Where are all the aliens?
Why does the length of a piece of string vary depending on how fast it is moving?
Our subject is 'perceived paradoxes' - questions or thought-experiments that on first encounter seem impossible to answer, but which science has been able to solve.
Our tour of these mind-expanding puzzles will take us through some of the greatest hits of science - from Einstein's theories about space and time, to the latest ideas of how the quantum world works. Some of our paradoxes may be familiar, such as Schrödinger's famous cat, which is seemingly alive and dead at the same time; or the Grandfather Paradox - if you travelled back in time and killed your grandfather you would not have been born and would not therefore have killed your grandfather. Other paradoxes will be new to you, but no less bizarre and fascinating.
In resolving our paradoxes we will have to travel to the furthest reaches of the Universe and explore the very essence of space and time. Hold on tight.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Tailor-made for puzzle fans and science aficionados. Al-Khalili's (Quantum: A Guide for the Perplexed) latest dives into "deep questions about the nature of time and space and the properties of the Universe" and shows just how tantalizing these problems can be. Al-Khalili, a quantum physicist at the University of Surrey, sets the stage for well-known problems like the "Monty Hall paradox," in which a contestant's attempt to guess which of three boxes contains the keys to a Lincoln Continental provides an object lesson in conditional probabilities. With ancient Greek scholar Zeno's paradox (if a tortoise gets a head start in racing the swift Achilles, can Achilles overtake his laggardly opponent?), the author explores converging infinite series in mathematics. A chapter on Maxwell's Demon (can there be a perpetual motion machine) gives a lesson in thermodynamics, and the infamous puzzler starring Erwin Schr dinger's hapless cat provides a quick lesson on quantum mechanical basics. Al-Khalili even tackles relativity and time travel with the "Twin Paradox" (one twin circles the galaxy near the speed of light and returns to find the other twin is now several years older than she is). Readers who enjoy mental challenges and scientific mysteries will have fun with Al-Khalili's lighthearted, accessible discussion. Illus.
