Non-Fiction Books:

Worlds Without End

The Many Lives of the Multiverse
Click to share your rating 0 ratings (0.0/5.0 average) Thanks for your vote!

Format:

Hardback
$59.99
Available from supplier

The item is brand new and in-stock with one of our preferred suppliers. The item will ship from a Mighty Ape warehouse within the timeframe shown.

Usually ships in 3-4 weeks

Buy Now, Pay Later with:

Afterpay is available on orders $100 to $2000 Learn more

Availability

Delivering to:

Estimated arrival:

  • Around 18-28 June using International Courier

Description

"Multiverse" cosmologies imagine our universe as just one of a vast number of others. While this idea has captivated philosophy, religion, and literature for millennia, it is now being considered as a scientific hypothesis-with different models emerging from cosmology, quantum mechanics, and string theory. Beginning with ancient Atomist and Stoic philosophies, Mary-Jane Rubenstein links contemporary models of the multiverse to their forerunners and explores the reasons for their recent appearance. One concerns the so-called fine-tuning of the universe: nature's constants are so delicately calibrated that it seems they have been set just right to allow life to emerge. For some thinkers, these "fine-tunings" are evidence of the existence of God; for others, however, and for most physicists, "God" is an insufficient scientific explanation. Hence the allure of the multiverse: if all possible worlds exist somewhere, then like monkeys hammering out Shakespeare, one universe is bound to be suitable for life. Of course, this hypothesis replaces God with an equally baffling article of faith: the existence of universes beyond, before, or after our own, eternally generated yet forever inaccessible to observation or experiment. In their very efforts to sidestep metaphysics, theoretical physicists propose multiverse scenarios that collide with it and even produce counter-theological narratives. Far from invalidating multiverse hypotheses, Rubenstein argues, this interdisciplinary collision actually secures their scientific viability. We may therefore be witnessing a radical reconfiguration of physics, philosophy, and religion in the modern turn to the multiverse.

Author Biography:

Mary-Jane Rubenstein is professor of religion at Wesleyan University and the author of Strange Wonder: The Closure of Metaphysics and the Opening of Awe.
Release date Australia
January 28th, 2014
Audience
  • Professional & Vocational
Illustrations
12 b&w illustrations
Pages
360
Dimensions
152x229x30
ISBN-13
9780231156622
Product ID
21420459

Customer reviews

Nobody has reviewed this product yet. You could be the first!

Write a Review

Marketplace listings

There are no Marketplace listings available for this product currently.
Already own it? Create a free listing and pay just 9% commission when it sells!

Sell Yours Here

Help & options

Filed under...