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
- January 19: Chapter One (What is time?)
- January 26: Chapter Two (Entropy and the Second Law)
- February 2: Chapter Three (The expanding universe)
Part Two: Relativity
- February 9: Chapters Four and Five (Special and general relativity)
- February 16: Chapter Six (Time travel)
Part Three: Entropy and the Arrow of Time
- February 23: Chapter Seven (Determinism and reversibility)
- March 2: Chapter Eight (Entropy according to Boltzmann)
- March 9: Chapter Nine (Information, memory, life…)
- March 16: Chapter Ten (Recurrence and Boltzmann brains)
- March 23: Chapter Eleven (Quantum mechanics)
Part Four: Time and the Universe
- March 30: Chapter Twelve (Black holes)
- April 6: Chapter Thirteen (Evolution of the universe)
- April 13: Chapter Fourteen (Inflation)
- April 20: Chapter Fifteen and Epilogue (Explaining the arrow of time)
January 12th, 2010 at 9:24 am
This sounds fun! My copy arrives today!! Can’t wait to get started.
January 12th, 2010 at 9:47 am
I’m currently in Chapter 5… can’t WAIT to get to part 3! Looking forward to the discussions.
January 12th, 2010 at 9:51 am
Looking forward to the discussion & insights.
January 12th, 2010 at 10:13 am
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.
January 12th, 2010 at 10:20 am
Judging by a couple of the Amazon reviews, I hope you plan to actively “monitor” the comments on the book club.
January 12th, 2010 at 12:05 pm
Mine just arrived! STANDING BY.
January 12th, 2010 at 12:10 pm
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
January 12th, 2010 at 2:43 pm
Just purchased a copy today. Looking forward to the discussions!
January 12th, 2010 at 4:02 pm
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.
January 12th, 2010 at 5:29 pm
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…
January 12th, 2010 at 8:20 pm
The world outside seems pretty chaotic at the moment, but it’s not yet thermal equilibrium.
January 12th, 2010 at 8:51 pm
Just came across this in my reader. Will pick it up this weekend! Very excited!
January 13th, 2010 at 10:22 am
Great timing, my copy arrived today. And I’m living in Germany! Globalization rocks.
January 14th, 2010 at 5:32 am
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.
January 14th, 2010 at 7:10 pm
Any chance you’ll be commenting on Verlinde’s think on arXiv. I haven’t read your book yet, but it sounds like you are wading in the same waters.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1001.0785
January 14th, 2010 at 9:05 pm
At some point I hope to — haven’t had a chance to read it yet.
January 17th, 2010 at 3:37 pm
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.
January 18th, 2010 at 1:02 pm
I never have been on a blog or book club in my long life, but yours will be worth my time.
January 18th, 2010 at 4:05 pm
Okay, I ordered it and got it, but all I see is Burt Lancaster in swimtrunks in the surf.
January 18th, 2010 at 5:14 pm
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.
January 19th, 2010 at 9:15 am
[...] to the first installment of the From Eternity to Here book club. We’re starting at the beginning, with Chapter One, “The Past is Present [...]
January 19th, 2010 at 11:31 am
It’s 2:30 EST, hope I haven’t missed Chapter 1. Is it on another link?
January 19th, 2010 at 11:45 am
RGG, each chapter will have its own post. Here’s the discussion for Chapter One.
January 19th, 2010 at 12:14 pm
[...] was even more excited to find out he’d be organizing an online book club through his blog, going through his book at a rate of roughly one chapter per week. The first post [...]
January 20th, 2010 at 12:56 pm
Sean:
In your thread on Chapter 1, you take the trouble to address each question raised.
But here, you’ve completely ignored #4 (that I raised).
How come?
January 26th, 2010 at 7:42 am
[...] to this week’s installment of the From Eternity to Here book club. Today we look at Chapter Two, “The Heavy Hand of [...]
February 2nd, 2010 at 8:01 am
[...] to this week’s installment of the From Eternity to Here book club. Next up is Chapter Three: “The Beginning and End of Time.” Remember that next week [...]
February 9th, 2010 at 8:06 am
[...] to this week’s installment of the From Eternity to Here book club. This week we’re tackling two chapters at once: Chapter Four, “Time is Personal,” [...]
February 16th, 2010 at 7:29 am
[...] to this week’s installment of the From Eternity to Here book club. Chapter Six is entitled “Looping Through Time.” It’s about both the logical [...]
February 23rd, 2010 at 8:04 am
[...] to this week’s installment of the From Eternity to Here book club. We next take a look at Chapter Seven, “Running Time Backward.” Now we’re getting [...]
March 2nd, 2010 at 8:54 am
[...] to this week’s installment of the From Eternity to Here book club. Finally we dig into the guts of the matter, as we embark on Chapter Eight, “Entropy and [...]
March 9th, 2010 at 7:43 am
[...] to this week’s installment of the From Eternity to Here book club. Now for something of a palate-cleanser, in the form of Chapter Nine, “Information and [...]
March 9th, 2010 at 1:46 pm
[...] to this week’s installment of the From Eternity to Here book club. Now for something of a palate-cleanser, in the form of Chapter Nine, “Information and [...]