Cycles of Time: An Extraordinary New View of the Universe

Description

In his first book since the bestselling The Road to Reality, one of our most distinguished scientists offers a radical new theory of the origin, and ultimate end, of the Universe. **WINNER OF THE 2020 NOBEL PRIZE IN PHYSICS** What came before the Big Bang? How did the universe begin and must it inevitably end? In this remarkable book Roger Penrose brilliantly illuminates some of the deepest mysteries of the universe. Cycles of Time contains a penetrating analysis of the second law of thermodynamics - according to which the 'randomness' of our world is continually increasing - and a thorough examination of the light-cone geometry of space-time. It combines these two central themes to show how the expected ultimate fate of our accelerating, expanding universe can actually be reinterpreted as the 'big bang' of a new one. Presenting various standard and non-standard cosmological models, discussing black holes in depth as well as taking in the role of the cosmic microwave background along the way, Roger Penrose argues that the Big Bang was not actually the beginning of everything - nor will it signal the end. 'Science needs more people like Penrose, willing and able to point out the flaws in fashionable models from a position of authority, and to signpost alternative roads to follow' Independent

Roger Penrose is one the world's foremost theoretical physicists, and the winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2020. He has won numerous other prizes, including the Albert Einstein Medal, for his fundamental contributions to general relativity and cosmology. He is the bestselling author of The Road to Reality- A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe and Cycles of Time- An Extraordinary New View of the Universe. His other books include Fashion, Faith and Fantasy in the New Physics of the Universe, The Emperor's New Mind, Shadows of the Mind and, with Stephen Hawking, The Nature of Space and Time. He is the Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics Emeritus at the University of Oxford, and lives in Oxford.

Penrose is truly one of the world's leading mathematical physicists * Scotland on Sunday * Science needs more people like Penrose, willing and able to point out the flaws in fashionable models from a position of authority, and to signpost alternative roads to follow * Independent * A genuinely new idea about the origins of the universe that, although untested, seems to hold together theoretically and must be taken seriously given Penrose's status -- Doug Johnstone * Scotsman * Cycles of Time can be highly recommended as an example of how cosmologists are now thinking the unthinkable by trying to look back beyond the Big Bang and forward beyond the death of our universe * Literary Review * Cycles of Time is as uncondescending in style and as impenetrable in content as his previous books. Which is not to say that there are not, as before, many pleasures to be had along the way * Sunday Times *