rdf-syntax-grammar
mods:
  schema location: http://www.loc.gov/mods/v3 http://www.loc.gov/standards/mods/v3/mods-3-2.xsd
  title info:
    title: Signatures of the artist
    sub title: the vital imperfections that make our universe habitable
  name:
    name part: Vigdor, Steven E.
    role:
      role term: creator
    role:
      role term: author.
  type of resource: text
  genre: bibliography
  genre: Electronic books.
  genre: Popular works
  origin info:
    place:
      place term: enk
    date issued: 2018
    copyright date: 2018
    edition: First edition.
    issuance: monographic
  language:
    language term: eng
  physical description:
    form: remote
    extent: 1 online resource
  abstract: This is a broad-ranging, non-mathematical introduction to recent and ongoing research that has illuminated the physical conditions necessary for our universe to support structure and life. The primary focus is on particle and nuclear physics and cosmology, which have exposed the fine-tuning and imperfections vital for a habitable universe. These conditions rely on a surprising number of tiny imperfections--deviations from perfect symmetry (i.e., symmetry violations), homogeneity, or predictability--that seem mysteriously fine-tuned. The emphasis here is on the intricate tapestry of elegant experiments that have revealed and quantified these imperfections, as well as on theoretical efforts to understand how the imperfections arose in the infant universe. Among the topics covered are: the dominance of matter over antimatter (i.e., matter-antimatter asymmetry); the existence and intermixing of three generations of quarks and leptons; the stability of hydrogen and synthesis of other elements essential for life; the longevity and energy budget of the universe; the remaining mysteries surrounding dark matter, dark energy, and the postulated inflationary expansion of space in the infant universe; the fundamental role of randomness in quantum mechanics, in generating the first biomolecules and in biological evolution; the apparent perching of the vacuum state in our universe on the edge between stability and meta-stability; and philosophical questions, including the possibility of a multiverse, surrounding the interpretation of a universe that exhibits such fine-tuning. On all of these issues, the book clarifies what we know and how we know it, as distinct from what we speculate and how we might test it.
  table of contents: Thank heaven for little flaws -- Where's the antimatter gone, long time passing? -- Trinity -- Water, water, here and there -- Expansion everlasting -- The dark side -- Randomness and complexity -- The edge of the abyss -- Lucky or special? -- Appendix: timeline of discoveries and research highlighted in the text -- Glossary -- Reading list -- References -- Index.
  note: Steven E. Vigdor.
  note: Includes bibliographical references and index.
  subject:
    topic: Astrophysics
  subject:
    topic: Life
    topic: Origin
  subject:
    topic: Cosmology
    genre: Popular works
  subject:
    topic: Astrophysique
  subject:
    topic: Vie
    topic: Origines
  subject:
    topic: Cosmologie
    genre: Ouvrages de vulgarisation
  subject:
    topic: astrophysics
  subject:
    topic: SCIENCE
    topic: Astronomy
  subject:
    topic: Astrophysics
  subject:
    topic: Cosmology
  subject:
    topic: Life
    topic: Origin
  classification: QB461.5
  classification: 523.01
  related item:
    title info:
      title: Signatures of the artist
    name:
      name part: Vigdor, Steven E.
    origin info:
      publisher: Oxford, United Kingdom : Oxford University Press, 2018
      edition: First edition.
    identifier: (OCoLC)1000445218
  identifier: 9780192546760
  identifier: 0192546767
  identifier: 9780191852954
  identifier: 0191852953
  identifier: 0198814828
  identifier: 9780198814825
  identifier: 2017959072
  identifier: http://proxy.library.tamu.edu/login
  record info:
    record content source: N$T
    record creation date: 180308
    record change date: 20260319164733.4
    record identifier: in00005715746
    language of cataloging:
      language term: eng