Summary of Laura Mersini-Houghton's Before the Big Bang

Everest Media

Description

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.
Sample Book Insights:
#1 I left Albania in 1994 for a new life in the United States. I had won a full scholarship to study at an American university. I was shocked when I received a letter congratulating me on winning a Fulbright scholarship to study advanced physics for one academic year at the University of Maryland in College Park.
#2 I had always wanted to be in the world of numbers and hard sciences, and I ended up majoring in physics and math at the University of Tirana. My friends in Albania thought that doing math for fun was nuts, but once I migrated to the United States, I found myself surrounded by students who were as passionate about the subject as I was.
#3 I was drawn to the big questions about the universe, and I especially liked theoretical physics and cosmology. I was accepted into the Gravitational Theory and Cosmology Group at the University of Maryland, and I learned that the odds that our universe would form in the way that it did were nearly zero.
#4 I was initially drawn to the singularity theorem because it seemed so strange. It stated that if our universe has been expanding since its creation, then it must have started from a point in space of infinite energy density, which is a singularity. I didn’t believe it, and I continued to dissect and analyze Penrose’s reasoning.

Sujets

• Autobiography
• General
• General officer
• Biography

Informations

• Publié par: Everest Media LLC
• Date de parution: 31 juillet 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9798822564084
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Insights on Laura Mersini-Houghton's Before the Big Bang
Contents Insights from Chapter 1 Insights from Chapter 2 Insights from Chapter 3 Insights from Chapter 4 Insights from Chapter 5 Insights from Chapter 6 Insights from Chapter 7 Insights from Chapter 8 Insights from Chapter 9 Insights from Chapter 10 Insights from Chapter 11
Insights from Chapter 1

#1

I left Albania in 1994 for a new life in the United States. I had won a full scholarship to study at an American university. I was shocked when I received a letter congratulating me on winning a Fulbright scholarship to study advanced physics for one academic year at the University of Maryland in College Park.

#2

I had always wanted to be in the world of numbers and hard sciences, and I ended up majoring in physics and math at the University of Tirana. My friends in Albania thought that doing math for fun was nuts, but once I migrated to the United States, I found myself surrounded by students who were as passionate about the subject as I was.

#3

I was drawn to the big questions about the universe, and I especially liked theoretical physics and cosmology. I was accepted into the Gravitational Theory and Cosmology Group at the University of Maryland, and I learned that the odds that our universe would form in the way that it did were nearly zero.

#4

I was initially drawn to the singularity theorem because it seemed so strange. It stated that if our universe has been expanding since its creation, then it must have started from a point in space of infinite energy density, which is a singularity. I didn’t believe it, and I continued to dissect and analyze Penrose’s reasoning.

#5

Boltzmann’s formula is S = k Log W, which describes the relationship between the entropy of a system and its number of microstates. The number of microstates of a system is exponentially large with its entropy.

#6

The entropy of a system is a direct measure of its probability of occurrence. In order for our universe to be exponentially less likely to come into existence by chance than any other universe, it must have started from an exquisitely ordered state of very low entropy.

#7

The second law of thermodynamics states that the entropy of a system never decreases. Entropy always increases with time, no matter how much entropy you start with. The natural tendency for any system is to become more disordered, not less.

#8

The problem of the origin of our universe is that the theory of cosmic inflation, which is the most widely accepted explanation for how our universe came into existence, describes a universe that was extremely low in entropy at the moment of creation.
Insights from Chapter 2