What conceptual blind spot kept the ancient Greeks unlike the
來源:香港大書城megBookStore,http://www.megbook.com.hk Indians and Maya from developing a concept of zero? Why did St.
Augustine equate nothingness with the Devil? What tortuous means
did 17th-century scientists employ in their attempts to create a
vacuum? And why do contemporary quantum physicists believe that the
void is actually seething with subatomic activity? You’ll find the
answers in this dizzyingly erudite and elegantly explained book by
the English cosmologist John D. Barrow.
Ranging through
mathematics, theology, philosophy, literature, particle physics,
and cosmology, The Book of Nothing explores the enduring
hold that vacuity has exercised on the human imagination. Combining
high-wire speculation with a wealth of reference that takes in
Freddy Mercury and Shakespeare alongside Isaac Newton, Albert
Einstein, and Stephen Hawking, the result is a fascinating
excursion to the vanishing point of our knowledge.
目錄:
Preface
0 Nothingology Flying to Nowhere
1 Zero The Whole Story
2 Much Ado About Nothing
3 Constructing Nothing
4 The Drift Towards the Ether
5 Whatever Happened to Zero?
6 Empty Universes
7 The Box That Can Never Be Empty
8 How Many Vacuums Are There?
9 The Beginning and the End of the Vacuum
Notes
Index