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the whole shebang A... S.T.A.T.E.-.O.F.-.T.H.E.-.U.N.I.V.E.R.S.E.(.S.).. .R.E.P.O.R.T
BY TIMOTHY FERRIS
BY MILO MILES timothy ferris displays a profound respect for exact science coupled with a sharp imagination; he then puts both in orbit around a central core of humanism. His 1988 bestseller, "Coming of Age in the Milky Way," had a huge advantage over "The Whole Shebang," Ferris' current book -- namely its cast of brilliant, eccentric titans like Copernicus, Kepler, Newton and Einstein. That earlier book also had a fantastic story to tell -- how the need to understand the scope of space propelled one of the grand intellectual quests of human history. The epic came to a satisfying conclusion with Einstein's theory of relativity, but then it trailed off into that notorious brain-snarler, quantum physics. Ferris has no choice but to start with quantum physics in "The Whole Shebang," and to try to breathe life into abstract quarks nestled within 10 rolled-up dimensions lost in a universe more vast than anyone can begin to imagine. Ferris does usher several intriguing physics characters onstage -- the Zenlike Niels Bohr, the imploded Paul Dirac, the zany Fritz Zwicky -- but they seem like bit players compared to the world-shapers of his earlier book. Ferris has more luck with exotic inanimates in "The Whole Shebang." The eerie collapsed stars called black holes are everybody's favorite, of course, and Ferris can tell you what it would look like if an astronaut committed suicide by jumping into one: He'd move slower and slower, get redder and redder, then freeze and fade slowly from sight. Ferris also introduces even more extreme oddities, like the theoretical "boltzmon," an incredibly tiny particle containing a galaxy's worth of information. How can science nail down how the universe was created from nothing when no one can define exactly what "nothing" is? "The Whole Shebang" argues that living with paradox and obviously incomplete knowledge is the beginning of future wisdom, although the edginess of that conclusion leads to the loose God-talk that floats around cosmology today. A highlight of "The Whole Shebang" is Ferris' "Contrarian Theological Afterward," in which he discusses propositions for the existence of God. I won't give away his own line of reasoning, but it's sharp enough that I'll remember it if anyone asks me.
"The Whole Shebang" spends too many pages rehashing material presented in "Coming of Age in the Milky Way," but if you pick up just one cosmology book these days, you might want to go with Ferris simply for his superior comic timing. On a very arid, thorny subject like the anthropic principle, which states that the universe has to be constructed the way it is in order to be observed, he carefully introduces us to the weak anthropic principle (WAP), the strong version (SAP), and the participatory version (PAP). The capper is physicist Frank Tipler's Christ-addled final anthropic principle (FAP), which grumpy science writer Martin Gardner re-named "CRAP -- the Completely Ridiculous Anthropic Principle." In space no one can hear you laugh your ass off.
Milo Miles writes about music and the arts for the Village Voice and Fi magazine, among other publications. |
