From Eternity to Here: Book Club

33 Comments / Time, Words

As promised, we’re going to have a book club to talk about From Eternity to Here. Roughly speaking, every Tuesday I’ll post about another chapter, and we’ll talk about it. Easy enough, right? (Chapters 4 and 5, about relativity, are pretty short and will be combined into one week.)

For the most part I won’t be summarizing each chapter — because you’ll all have read the book, so that would be boring. Instead, I want to give some behind-the-scenes insight about what was going through my mind when I put each chapter together — a little exclusive for readers of the blog. Of course, in the comments I hope we can discuss the substance of the chapters in as much detail as we like. I’m going to try to participate actively in all the discussions, so I hope to answer questions when I can — and certainly expect to learn something myself along the way.

The book is divided into four parts: an overview, spacetime and relativity, entropy and the Second Law, and a discussion of how it all fits into cosmology. You can find a more detailed table of contents here, and here is the prologue to get you in the mood. Part Three is definitely the high point of the book, so be sure to stick around for that.

So see you next Tuesday! Get reading!

Part One: Overview

Part Two: Relativity

Part Three: Entropy and the Arrow of Time

Part Four: Time and the Universe

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33 Comments

33 thoughts on “From Eternity to Here: Book Club”

  4. Leonard Ornstein

    Sean:

    If the cosmological constant was somewhat different, the visible universe might be contracting, on its way ‘towards’ a state similar to that of a big bang universe, at its time ‘zero’. But the contraction would be in the ‘most probable direction’, in terms of our understanding of physics, and entropy would be increasing with passing time, even though the visible universe would be approaching a state indistinguishable from what you suggest is one of minimal entropy. However, omelets would not be turning into eggs 😉

    In your prologue, you completely ignore this paradoxical problem.

  5. Pat Dennis

    Judging by a couple of the Amazon reviews, I hope you plan to actively “monitor” the comments on the book club.

  7. Paul

    listened to Coast to Coast while Mr Carroll was talking about this book excellent — he has my high mark for lecture. but i imagine he will be to busy coaching the Seahawks now ! :-0

  9. cope

    Rats, now I have to go out and buy a copy to do my homework. Fortunately, one of my high-school science students gave me a generous gift card to B & N. I can’t think of a better way to use it.

  10. Brad DeLong

    Well, I think it’s all going wrong. The book is turning me into a believer in Boltzmann’s Brain–I keep going to the window and peering out to see if the rest of the universe is still there or has collapsed into chaos yet…

  14. tlee1771

    While reading about closed timelike curves, I was feeling a little down, thinking my deterministic world had been destroyed and there was free will (bummer to me). Then I learned they probably don’t exist and I felt good again. Was worried I might have to change from a liberal to a conservative, whew.

    Now I’m learning that information can be lost (I don’t want info. to be lost) and was thankful that CPT has a way around it. This is all very hard for a Dentist- Biologist with a passion for Physics, but I’m lovin it.

    Thanks, Sean, B.Greene, L. Randall, L. Susskind, and S. Hawking for your books.

  17. maxwell's d.

    I’m sure we’d all be very interested to read your thoughts on Verlinde’s paper, Sean. At the very least it’s makes some powerful philosophical claims motivated by concerns that appear similar to yours. And at the very most it’s a true watershed paper.

  20. TS

    I hope you explain a little better the end of chapter one (from “Twisty paths through spacetime” to the end.) I had a hard time understanding a few comments, ie “a straight trajectory between two events in spacetime describes the longest elapsed duration” and the part about block time, eternalism and presentism. I couldn’t understand what you were getting at.

    Anyway, I am enjoying the book, and look forward to grasping fully the concepts you are writing about.

  21. Pingback: From Eternity to Book Club: Chapter One | Cosmic Variance | Discover Magazine

  24. Pingback: Book Club: From Eternity to Here, by Sean Carroll « The Thoughtful Animal

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