The Book of Nothing: Vacuums, Voids, and the Latest Ideas About the Origins of the Universe

by John D. Barrow

Book Overview

What conceptual blind spot kept the ancient Greeks (unlike the Indians and Maya) from developing a concept of zero? Why did St. Augustine equate nothingness with the Devil? What tortuous means did... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0375420991
• ISBN13: 9780375420993
• Release Date: April 2001
• Publisher: Pantheon
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 1.51 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.5" x 1.5" x 6.5"

Customer Reviews

Lambda force rules in Universe ? at least for now.

John Barrow's work is truly nifty and represents well-researched and designed material, that can stand on it's own.If you have already read popular science cosmology books by Kip Thorne, Igor Novikov, Martin Rees or Alan Guth (just a few excellent examples - check my reviews), "The Book of Nothing" will still deliver new and fresh angle through which mysteries of quantum and Universe can be looked at. Therefore I recommend this book to all cosmology readers.Book is unique as a blend of tasteful dissertations from the realms of theology, philosophy, mathematics and cosmo - science. We will discover Mayan culture, Islamic art and Babylonian concept of zero, meet and learn what they thought or discovered - Greek philosophers, Hindus, Leibniz, Galileo, Pascal, Descartes, Newton/Einstein, Godel, Lemaitre, Plank, Guth, Linde, and Penrose/Hawking. The main theme (regardless if this was cosmology part of the book or not) is vacuum, and more exactly: it's energy.Vacuum is not empty due to quantum phenomena and vacuum presents itself as a LAMBDA force, dominating, according to what we observe, the current behaviour of visible Universe.Especially interesting are author's summaries about famous question: "Why is there something rather than nothing?", and about origin of the Universe and life.Is it possible that Cosmos always existed and will exist, or has it been created out of NOTHING?After all, one may construct, very easily, mathematical equation that proves "nothing" theory (find it inside the book).Can cosmos be self-reproductive or cyclical? John Barrow and his colleague Mariusz Dabrowski discovered answer to the latter.Few explanations:Figure 8.2 (Mexican hat): horizontal axes (both) can be labeled as Higgs field values.Figure 8.5: horizontal axis contains label for the scalar field as well.Figure 7.11 contains symbol "phi" (zero with slash): it represents the golden ratio and equals (1 + square root of 5)/2 = 1.61803...Sentence on page 248 (paperback edition) should read: "..so in combination they can pin down the Universe by their overlap with far greater certainty (not "uncertainty") than when taken singly." This sentence describes figure 8.10.Finally I was overwhelmed and amused by many great citations, that shine along the text. Some of them are really funny; some are incredibly deep and surprising.Here is a sample of the funny one:"I must say that I find TV very educational. Whenever somebody turns it on, I go to the library and read a book".For sure, go and read John Barrow's, you will not regret.

Nothing as something

This book is a magnificent trip. Just in the way that it covers the information that it does alone, in relation to a great nothingness and all of its counterparts, makes it a stimulating cosmic voyage. But that voyage starts at home: planet Earth. It starts out pretty philosophical discussing the abstraction known as zero. It covers the cultural acceptance and interpretations throughout the scope of written history of zero, nothing, and void. The Babylonians and Mayans, and last but not least Indians ( in their dynamic mystical lexicon frequently concerned with being and nothingness) were the only cultures to really designate the concept with a zero-like symbol. The Greeks, commonly thought of as the masterminds at the source of modern logic and mathematical thinking, had no such symbol for a concept thought devoid of physical value. The time capsule then picks up to the last several centuries (the times of the Scientific Revolution), and physicists earlier attempts to construct a physical vacuum against the vicious abhorrence of nature to such a monstrosity. To call it a monstrosity is not much of an exaggeration but probably closer to a euphemism, for people like Augustine proclaimed the bizarre concept a satanic heresy. Many many other related concepts are discussed that I will not delve into detail pertaining to, such as the Cartesian theory of the vortices and the life of the outdated theory of an all pervading and fluid Ether. Then, slowly approaching the modern day it carries the reader into the domain of "empty universes", and Einsteins familiar notions of spacetime and curvature. Overall I found the Book of Nothing a pleasure of a read that intertwines science, philosophy, and math all into one great contemplation of nothing.

A laymans guide to absolutely nothing

This is my first Barrow book and I totally enjoyed it. I am saying this after coming to the conclusion that the minor errors, inconsistancies and British spellings in the American edition are due entirely to the lack of science expertise of the Random House editors who translated the book from UK english to American english.Physics is a big subject but the author found a narrow and well defined thread to follow that starts with the need for a zero placeholder in number systems and ends with the recently discovered expansion of the universe and zero point energy. He uses history, philosophy, mathematics and physics to move the reader along this thread. The delving into real physics concepts is so fearlessly done that it may turn off the Walter Mitty types who dream of Nobel Prizes. The math used is oriented toward logic rather than calculation.I can see where some new readers in physics might get lost in a very few places because names of theories are bandied about with no attached explanation of what or how. But this may be due to editor mishap rather then author intention. Stuff like this can be yet another reason to read another physics book. Like Roger Penrose's books, John Barrow's reflect an active researcher's ideas as well as accepted theory so don't be suprised that you may be reading about some things that no one else in the field supports. I think this is the reason why I like this book so much anyway.

How nothing became something

"Nothing is Real." --The Beatles, "Strawberry Fields Forever"As quoted by Professor Barrow on page 8, this is a pun on what the Beatles had in mind, and is in essence what this book is all about. Nothing is real in the sense that it is no longer the nothing that it once was. It is actually "something." On the next page, to further illustrate the point, Barrow quotes the lyric from Freddie Mercury (of Queen), "Nothing really matters." It does indeed!The impetus for this, Barrow's latest book on cosmology, seems to be the growing realization that the vacuum of space ("nothing") is not entirely empty, and in fact cannot in principle ever be empty. As Barrow explains in Chapter 7, "The Box that Can Never Be Empty," it would be a violation of the Uncertainty Principle because, "If we could say that there were no particles in a box, that it was completely empty of all mass and energy," we would have "perfect information about motion at every point and about the energy of the system at a given instant of time" (p. 204). This rather simple, but shocking revelation, has consequences that are shaking the very foundation of our understanding of the cosmos. Quite simply it appears that there is no such thing as nothing.Barrow lays the ground work for this revelation by first exploring the nature of nothing as seen by the ancients, noting in particular the Greek abhorrence of the very idea that the vacuum could exist ("horror vacui"). In Chapter One, "Zero - The Whole Story," (which follows Chapter Nought) he recalls the history of zero and how it finally found acceptance. So great was the Greek horror of nothing that they did not have a zero in their number system. Many people found the idea of nothing and of zero frightening and impious. However, as Barrow shows, eventually zero triumphed over its adversaries because of its usefulness. In the next chapter, "Much Ado About Nothing," Barrow recalls the medieval debates about the vacuum, whether it exists, whether it existed before the creation of the world, and whether it was possible to create a vacuum. He recounts attempts to create a vacuum in Chapter Three, "Constructing Nothing," and then discusses the once and future ether that Einstein had so completely demolished. (It's back! But it's called the vacuum and it seems to have more properties than the old ether ever had.) In Chapter Five, "Whatever Happened to Zero?" Barrow explores some non-Euclidian geometries and shows how numbers are created out of the empty set in set theory, a neat ironic analogy to how universes are perhaps created out of the vacuum.Beginning in Chapter Six, "Empty Universes," Barrow concentrates on cosmology. I have to warn you that, despite Professor Barrow's elegant and graceful style and an abundance of charts, sidebars, lively quotes, and illustrations, this is not an easy read. The subject at the level Barrow wants to discuss it, is quite frankly very difficult. I have followed cosmology as a hobby for

Tour de Zero

An English don has written a tome about Nothing. It consists of 280 pages of text, 20 pages of quotes, 100 or so diagrams, followed by 50 pages of notes. Sounds like a cure for insomnia? You'll be mistaken, for Barrow takes us on a delightful journey through the history and science of Nothing. He traces the development of the mathematical zero in from ancient Babylonia and India to today's null graphs- a "pointless concept". The author also explains the old and modern theories and creation of physical void (e.g. Ether, vacuums, zero-point energy) , in the layman's language. Of course, as an erudite tour guide he has to discuss the philosophy behind it all while quoting from just about any source-newspaper advertisements to obscure thinkers. I do have a couple of quibbles about the book. One chapter less on vacuum would have better served the flow of ideas. The philosophical development of zero/shunya didn't stop in Asia as soon as they exported it to Europe. Buddhists took the idea up (Nagarjuna especially) and today shunyata forms an integral part of Mahayana Buddhism. Barrow doesn't discuss this(for reasons of space?). On the whole, its almost as much fun as Seinfeld.