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The Creation of the Universe
This lively and authoritative survey by an internationally famous physicist offers captivating perspectives on the origins of the galaxies, stars, chemical elements, and planetary systems. Illustrated with diagrams and the author's own drawings, it explains complex concepts in a simple manner. "Fascinating."—San Francisco Chronicle 40 figures. 1961 edition.
160 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1952
About the author
George Gamow
98 books237 followersGeorge Gamow (Russian pronunciation: [ˈɡaməf:]; March 4 [O.S. February 20:] 1904 – August 19, 1968), born Georgiy Antonovich Gamov (Георгий Антонович Гамов), was a theoretical physicist and cosmologist born in the Russian Empire. He discovered alpha decay via quantum tunneling and worked on radioactive decay of the atomic nucleus, star formation, stellar nucleosynthesis, big bang nucleosynthesis, cosmic microwave background, nucleocosmogenesis and genetics.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
January 14, 2017
Gamow was one of the first proposers of the big-bang theory opposite to the steady-stable cosmology proposed by Fred Hoyle and others;in this book he popularized this idea.By all this this book has historic value ,yet being rather outdated.Being of Gamow it is worth reading
August 25, 2021
Creation of the Universe, George Gamow (1904-1968), Revised Edition 1961, 147 pages
Library-of-Congress QB.981.G3.1961 (Memorial Library)
Gamow's wikipedia page: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg...
Thorium (half-life 14 billion years) and Uranium-238 (half-life 4.5 billion years) are abundant enough, they must've formed no more than a few billion years ago. p. 7. U-235, half-life 0.9 billion years, would've taken about 6 billion years to become as scarce as it is, if it started as common as U-238. No radioactive elements with half-lives much less than a billion years are found in nature. Rocks with radiogenic isotopes have been found that must've solidified at various times, from 58 million (Colorado) to 2.7 billion (Rhodesia) years ago.
The moon gets 5 inches farther from Earth every year. p. 13. 4 billion years ago, the moon would've been in low earth orbit; the month and the day would've both been about 7 hours. p. 15. (In the last 4000 years, earth's rotation has slowed by an accumulated 8 hours: ancient eclipse observations that seemingly would've been at night, were in daylight at the time. pp. 14-15)
Our sun fuses 5*10^38 hydrogen atoms to helium every second. p. 16. The sun could last 10 billion years. Stellar brightness increases as the cube of the star's mass. A star twice the mass burns at 8 times the rate, and lasts one-fourth as long. The mean age of stars now approaching their thermal death is about 5 billion years. p. 17. We conclude that most Milky Way stars were born about 5 billion years ago.
Cepheid variable stars pulsate with a period correlated to their absolute luminosity. p. 22. With the visual brightness, this gives us the distance. Hubble found that the Andromeda Nebula is 1 million light-years away: 100 times the diameter of the Milky Way! It's a galaxy!
Light from other galaxies is red-shifted: they are flying away from each other at high speed. p. 23.
Free neutrons are unstable and break into protons and electrons within 13 minutes of leaving the nucleus. p. 56.
The book doesn't address the question of how, if the universe was much smaller billions of years ago, light emitted then didn't reach the end of the universe long ago--rather than continuing in flight and reach us only now.
Library-of-Congress QB.981.G3.1961 (Memorial Library)
Gamow's wikipedia page: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg...
Thorium (half-life 14 billion years) and Uranium-238 (half-life 4.5 billion years) are abundant enough, they must've formed no more than a few billion years ago. p. 7. U-235, half-life 0.9 billion years, would've taken about 6 billion years to become as scarce as it is, if it started as common as U-238. No radioactive elements with half-lives much less than a billion years are found in nature. Rocks with radiogenic isotopes have been found that must've solidified at various times, from 58 million (Colorado) to 2.7 billion (Rhodesia) years ago.
The moon gets 5 inches farther from Earth every year. p. 13. 4 billion years ago, the moon would've been in low earth orbit; the month and the day would've both been about 7 hours. p. 15. (In the last 4000 years, earth's rotation has slowed by an accumulated 8 hours: ancient eclipse observations that seemingly would've been at night, were in daylight at the time. pp. 14-15)
Our sun fuses 5*10^38 hydrogen atoms to helium every second. p. 16. The sun could last 10 billion years. Stellar brightness increases as the cube of the star's mass. A star twice the mass burns at 8 times the rate, and lasts one-fourth as long. The mean age of stars now approaching their thermal death is about 5 billion years. p. 17. We conclude that most Milky Way stars were born about 5 billion years ago.
Cepheid variable stars pulsate with a period correlated to their absolute luminosity. p. 22. With the visual brightness, this gives us the distance. Hubble found that the Andromeda Nebula is 1 million light-years away: 100 times the diameter of the Milky Way! It's a galaxy!
Light from other galaxies is red-shifted: they are flying away from each other at high speed. p. 23.
Free neutrons are unstable and break into protons and electrons within 13 minutes of leaving the nucleus. p. 56.
The book doesn't address the question of how, if the universe was much smaller billions of years ago, light emitted then didn't reach the end of the universe long ago--rather than continuing in flight and reach us only now.
February 4, 2019
The book is very friendly and quite educational. It describes many mechanisms for cosmological and astrophysical phenomena and tries to explain the reasoning rather clearly. It also treats possible models in a level headed manner and really seems to elucidate the scientific method, etc. The photographs and drawings are great too!
February 5, 2020
Rather outdated, and very interesting as a result.
Many ideas that are now taken for granted were cutting edge when this book was written, so many topics that are glossed over in modern popular science books are entered into in great detail here, and with a greater sense of wonder and excitement.
The author tentatively suggests that we might now refer to 'spiral nebulae' as 'spiral galaxies' since new evidence suggests that there are in fact galaxies other than the milky way!
The book then proceeds to refer to them as spiral nebulae anyway :P
Old popular science books are a great reminder that science is a work in progress, and it's fun to play 'spot the outdated theory'. Reading old popular science books with a large grain of salt, because I know that they are probably wrong about a few things, has made me reflect that I should in fact read modern popular science books with a grain of salt of the exact same proportions, because they will turn out to be wrong about just as many things given time.
This book is rather heavy on the equations, as well as charts and graphs, and I did not understand all of it. It did make me want to double down on my maths skills. It made me want to be able to understand.
https://www.khanacademy.org/profile/D...
Many ideas that are now taken for granted were cutting edge when this book was written, so many topics that are glossed over in modern popular science books are entered into in great detail here, and with a greater sense of wonder and excitement.
The author tentatively suggests that we might now refer to 'spiral nebulae' as 'spiral galaxies' since new evidence suggests that there are in fact galaxies other than the milky way!
The book then proceeds to refer to them as spiral nebulae anyway :P
Old popular science books are a great reminder that science is a work in progress, and it's fun to play 'spot the outdated theory'. Reading old popular science books with a large grain of salt, because I know that they are probably wrong about a few things, has made me reflect that I should in fact read modern popular science books with a grain of salt of the exact same proportions, because they will turn out to be wrong about just as many things given time.
This book is rather heavy on the equations, as well as charts and graphs, and I did not understand all of it. It did make me want to double down on my maths skills. It made me want to be able to understand.
https://www.khanacademy.org/profile/D...
December 31, 2012
Si alguien quiere leer en serio sobre el Big Bang, debería pasar por este libro. Gamow, personaje imprescindible de la física del s. XX, cuenta con mucho humor y mucha claridad la teoría clásica del Big Bang, incluyendo la predicción del fondo de microondas. Un libro de obligada lectura.
May 16, 2023
The book varies between overarching themes and some fairly technical information, e.g. fluid dynamics in spiral nebulae.
Speaking of which, while Gamow discusses the ins and outs of swirling, he does not speculate on what causes the overall spiraling effect. But it’s as if he is describing Einstein’s general theory of relativity, i.e. the depression of spacetime by a large gravitational center that pulls inertial bodies (movement in a straight line) toward the gravitational center - hence, gravity ‘s attractive force is always paired with another body’s inertial, straight-line motion. With spiraling, are we seeing, per Einstein, the movement of matter and energy toward a gravitational depression in space-time?
Gamow discusses three possible scenarios for the universe’s formation and future, based on the belief that, initially, gravity (a pulling in) prevailed over radiation (a pushing out) but, later in the universe’s history, radiation has escaped the effect of gravity (because “velocity is everything”), which means what? Inertial movement in the absence of gravity? (1) In one of the scenarios put forward by Gamow, the inward effect of gravity and the outward effect of radiation reach a balance point, and a static universe is the result. (2) In another, gravity prevails and pulls matter and energy back to the gravitational center (hence, a collapsing system). (3) In the third system, radiation’s natural movement escapes gravity’s pull to become the forever expanding universe (as Hubble’s finding might support).
While these scenarios are understandable, his discussion of three geometric shapes of the universe is unclear. Going back to Einstein, the spherical universe is implied in the theory of general relativity. All mass - matter and energy - is concentrated at a center point or, rather, a great explosion begins from a center point that creates outward movement and, in time, gravitational clumping. If this is the case, how is the outward expansion for a big bang scenario flat? Rather, wouldn’t it be outward as a ball, in all directions? In a positive curvature, a straight line movement from a center point would converge back on itself. In a negative curvature, the outward movement is divergent, never to re-concentrate. Yet, under the former (positive curvature), straight line movement outward does not converge at a pole, as longitudinal lines do on Earth, but the curves continue (as inertial force) around the macro-gravitational center until they reconverge with it. Interestingly, Gamow says that the universe is finite and closes back on itself as light (energy and matter) travels around. Under the latter scenario (negative curvature), wouldn’t movement still be outward from a gravitational center (an initial concentrated density) that in vast time would pull mass and energy back to itself?
Given the above, the common time-space diagram that typically is provided to explain outward movement to 13.8 bya (billion years ago; Gamow uses ‘AC’ - after creation) is misleading in one sense as it conveys a linear, not circular (as from a ball), expansion. But, beyond that, as the diagram says that the highest concentration of mass (matter and energy) is when the big bang first occurred, might the universe’s gravitational center be out there and all that we see, and all that we don’t see given that our perception is limited beyond the space-time curvature (the horizon problem), is toward that highly distant point (and the origins of spacetime)?
(1) Interestingly, this seems like what current thinking is saying about dark energy - some unknown propulsive force pushing the expansion of the universe.
(2) “...Einstein’s original model of the so-called ‘spherical universe’ is mechanically static and does not provide either for expansion or contraction.”
(3) Gamow writes: “We cannot exclude the possibility that at some distance farther out the properties of space may change so radically that our present knowledge no longer applies. One may examine, for example, that, although within the observed distances, space does not show the slightest tendency to close, at greater distances it may suddenly ‘change its mind’ and begin to close.”
Speaking of which, while Gamow discusses the ins and outs of swirling, he does not speculate on what causes the overall spiraling effect. But it’s as if he is describing Einstein’s general theory of relativity, i.e. the depression of spacetime by a large gravitational center that pulls inertial bodies (movement in a straight line) toward the gravitational center - hence, gravity ‘s attractive force is always paired with another body’s inertial, straight-line motion. With spiraling, are we seeing, per Einstein, the movement of matter and energy toward a gravitational depression in space-time?
Gamow discusses three possible scenarios for the universe’s formation and future, based on the belief that, initially, gravity (a pulling in) prevailed over radiation (a pushing out) but, later in the universe’s history, radiation has escaped the effect of gravity (because “velocity is everything”), which means what? Inertial movement in the absence of gravity? (1) In one of the scenarios put forward by Gamow, the inward effect of gravity and the outward effect of radiation reach a balance point, and a static universe is the result. (2) In another, gravity prevails and pulls matter and energy back to the gravitational center (hence, a collapsing system). (3) In the third system, radiation’s natural movement escapes gravity’s pull to become the forever expanding universe (as Hubble’s finding might support).
While these scenarios are understandable, his discussion of three geometric shapes of the universe is unclear. Going back to Einstein, the spherical universe is implied in the theory of general relativity. All mass - matter and energy - is concentrated at a center point or, rather, a great explosion begins from a center point that creates outward movement and, in time, gravitational clumping. If this is the case, how is the outward expansion for a big bang scenario flat? Rather, wouldn’t it be outward as a ball, in all directions? In a positive curvature, a straight line movement from a center point would converge back on itself. In a negative curvature, the outward movement is divergent, never to re-concentrate. Yet, under the former (positive curvature), straight line movement outward does not converge at a pole, as longitudinal lines do on Earth, but the curves continue (as inertial force) around the macro-gravitational center until they reconverge with it. Interestingly, Gamow says that the universe is finite and closes back on itself as light (energy and matter) travels around. Under the latter scenario (negative curvature), wouldn’t movement still be outward from a gravitational center (an initial concentrated density) that in vast time would pull mass and energy back to itself?
Given the above, the common time-space diagram that typically is provided to explain outward movement to 13.8 bya (billion years ago; Gamow uses ‘AC’ - after creation) is misleading in one sense as it conveys a linear, not circular (as from a ball), expansion. But, beyond that, as the diagram says that the highest concentration of mass (matter and energy) is when the big bang first occurred, might the universe’s gravitational center be out there and all that we see, and all that we don’t see given that our perception is limited beyond the space-time curvature (the horizon problem), is toward that highly distant point (and the origins of spacetime)?
(1) Interestingly, this seems like what current thinking is saying about dark energy - some unknown propulsive force pushing the expansion of the universe.
(2) “...Einstein’s original model of the so-called ‘spherical universe’ is mechanically static and does not provide either for expansion or contraction.”
(3) Gamow writes: “We cannot exclude the possibility that at some distance farther out the properties of space may change so radically that our present knowledge no longer applies. One may examine, for example, that, although within the observed distances, space does not show the slightest tendency to close, at greater distances it may suddenly ‘change its mind’ and begin to close.”
April 25, 2022
Es un fantástico libro de divulgación científica, complicado.. complicado eso sí. Incluso conociendo de cerca la física, de la que no recuerdo prácticamente nada (Recuerdos ancestrales del siglo pasado, delante de un mesa de estudio, pasando las horas haciendo triple integrales, de las cuales, ahora sinceramente, solo recuerdo el momento cuando las solucionaba, pero hasta ahí me quedo, es decir, no me acuerdo de nadita nadita)
Bueno siguiendo con el libro, tienes que refrescar ciertos conocimientos o tener conceptos para entender el libro, no todo, pero gran parte si, ya que si no, implosionará tu cerebro fuertemente. Yo he tenido que saltar algún párrafo de formulaciones pues se me escapa de la comprensión matemática ya obsoleta que tengo, y eso que la parte de la explicación referente al cálculo de la edad de los átomos mediante la radiación e isótopos de uranio y plomo lo comprendía y era relativamente sencillo, pero luego, más adelante he implosionado varias veces, la verdad.
Bueno siguiendo con el libro, tienes que refrescar ciertos conocimientos o tener conceptos para entender el libro, no todo, pero gran parte si, ya que si no, implosionará tu cerebro fuertemente. Yo he tenido que saltar algún párrafo de formulaciones pues se me escapa de la comprensión matemática ya obsoleta que tengo, y eso que la parte de la explicación referente al cálculo de la edad de los átomos mediante la radiación e isótopos de uranio y plomo lo comprendía y era relativamente sencillo, pero luego, más adelante he implosionado varias veces, la verdad.
December 24, 2021
Me ha gustado mucho.
Creo que lo puede leer cualquier persona porque el autor se encarga de ejemplificar todo, además de añadir en varias ocasiones imágenes para que te quede totalmente claro de lo que está hablando.
El autor no intenta imponerte su idea si no que te muestra varias teorías de varios científicos, te las explica y deja que te quedes con la opción que más te convenza.
En resumen, si te interesa este tipo de contenido deberías de darle una oportunidad.
Creo que lo puede leer cualquier persona porque el autor se encarga de ejemplificar todo, además de añadir en varias ocasiones imágenes para que te quede totalmente claro de lo que está hablando.
El autor no intenta imponerte su idea si no que te muestra varias teorías de varios científicos, te las explica y deja que te quedes con la opción que más te convenza.
En resumen, si te interesa este tipo de contenido deberías de darle una oportunidad.
October 7, 2018
Enjoyed the read
I found the book informative and approachable. Some of the information was slightly outdated, however there was an abundance of good information. It helps if you have a passion for this type of material, it can be quite dry to read.
I found the book informative and approachable. Some of the information was slightly outdated, however there was an abundance of good information. It helps if you have a passion for this type of material, it can be quite dry to read.
Shelved as 'notable'
September 4, 2022This book espouses the Big Bang theory... For those who didn't get the memo—The ever-increasing red shifts of ever more distant objects are incompatible with the theory, and the theory is now defunct.
February 21, 2013
oh was a classic! just wish it wasn't this out dated. it's very well written - perfect for a lay person interested in taking a non-shallow dive into cosmology. i wanted to read it just for its quaintness, but came out realizing there were so many questions I had not even thought of asking about basic cosmology. i learned quite a bit from this book, but some of it is probably out dated unfortunately. i'd highly recommend this book for someone new to the subject - facts can be gotten right with subsequent reading of newer material.
August 13, 2010
I read this and Gamow's Birth and Death of the Sun while visiting my maternal grandfather in Oslo, Norway. Together, sadly, they represent most of what I think I know about cosmology.
March 2, 2016
Somewhat dated science but good explanations on the more simple established principles of cosmology.
August 7, 2017
¡He registrado un libro en BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/14670180
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/14670180
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