(Part 2) Reddit mentions: The best astronomy & space science books

Some people like this scope, but IMHO, this isn't a telescope I'd recommend: you pay too much for too little telescope and too much for mediocre electronic and mechanical mount components. If it's not too late, my first recommendation would be to return it and purchase an 8" Dob.

BUT, if you're not able or willing to do that, and this is the scope you have, then that's that.

My next recommendation is to join an astronomy club in your area. There most likely is one, and it's the BEST place to learn more about how to use your telescope and what to see. Membership in most clubs in the US costs $50 or less per year. If you let us know where you're located, I can try looking up clubs that are local to you.

Now, as for add-ons and other accessories... the first thing I'd recommend is a copy of Turn Left at Orion. It's a great introduction to using a telescope, and very user friendly.

Next, camera mounts: none. There's plenty available, but this isn't really a telescope designed for or good for astrophotography. You could possibly capture some decent images of the moon, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. But that's about it. This telescope has an alt-az mount, which is not anywhere near accurate enough for the long-exposure photography required for deep sky objects (nebulae, galaxies, clusters, etc...). If you're limited to 4 targets, then it seems a bit of a waste to me to buy an adapter. Also, using a DSLR would not be recommended, as the mount isn't designed to add a lot of additional weight to the back end, and it will likely decrease the tracking accuracy, and, depending on the weight of the camera and adapting components, could potentially damage the mount's components (unlikely, but possible). Since these mounts aren't well-constructed anyway, I wouldn't recommend this. If you really badly want to try imaging planets or the moon, I'd pick up a cheap webcam and modify it (there's plenty of tutorials online for this) to use with the telescope. There's also some low-cost planetary imaging cams (basically glorified webcams) on the market. They would be a better choice than trying to connect a DSLR.

For eyepieces... that's a bit more tricky. You get a couple lower-end 25 mm and 9 mm
plossl eyepieces. Plossl is a type of eyepiece design that is fairly common these days. They tend to provide pretty decent views, depending on the specific design, for a fairly affordable price. To determine your magnification, you take the telescope's focal length (1,500 mm in your case) and divide it by that of the eyepiece. For your eyepieces, this gives you a magnification of 60x with the 25 mm eyepiece and 167x with the 9mm.

Magnification is a funny thing, however. You can, in theory, magnify an image as much as you like. However, the telescope can only produce so much useful magnification, depending on a number of factors. The key factors are the telescope aperture, the steadiness of the air, and the transparency of the air. When light enters the telescope, it begins to diffract, which manifests itself in blurring of the image. At lower magnifications, it is far less noticeable than at higher magnifications, and the larger the aperture, the more you can magnify before the diffraction creates so much blurring as to be useless. I created this example to show what happens. While this is photographic, and has a slightly different cause, the overall effect is similar. As you continue to magnify, you lose sharpness of detail until the image becomes so blurry as to be useless. In the case of your telescope, under fairly good atmospheric conditions, you might get as high as about 250x magnification before blurring is too severe. Under normal conditions, however, 150x is a more reasonable limit (the rule of thumb is to multiple the aperture in inches by 30x for normal viewing and 50 or 60x for ideal atmospheric conditions).

Thus a higher magnification eyepiece probably won't do much for you except on very good nights, in which case a 6 mm eyepiece would really be pushing your limits. On the other hand, with the 25 mm eyepiece, you don't have a very wide field of view, so you might consider something like a 30 mm, maybe a 35 mm, eyepiece to get a wider field of view (though the 35 might be too long for this scope to use effectively).

Whatever you do, do NOT buy one of those inexpensive eyepiece kits that have 3 or more eyepieces and filters. The eyepieces are usually very low in quality and you really don't need all of them. You can buy separate filter kits for less, and a Barlow lens will not be particularly useful at all to you.

This telescope will be best for planetary observation. A set of basic filters might be useful. With planetary observation, these help to increase contrast to pull out specific details. This site and this one have some pretty good information concerning which filters are best for what. For lunar observation, a neutral density filter (aka moon filter) is also helpful to cut down the brightness and glare of the moon (essentially it's sunglasses for your telescope). For deep sky objects, colored filters are not desirable, though there are some filters that do help with observing particular types of objects. In particular "nebula" filters, which are combinations of narrowband filters to allow common wavelengths of light specific to different kinds of nebula emissions to pass through. An OIII (Doubly-ionized Oxygen) filter can also be helpful for certain nebulae. I wouldn't rush out to buy one right away, however, until you get a bit more experience. This is another good reason to join an astronomy club: going to star parties will give you a chance to talk to other people about what they use and see how filters can help you.

Another filter you might come across is what we call a Light Pollution Reduction (LPR) filter. These are a mixed bag, and more of a personal choice. They do not make viewing from a light-polluted area like viewing from a dark site. They do, however, for some objects, help increase contrast to make them more visible. This is another place I'd experiment before buying.

If you're interested in solar viewing, you do have some options, but proceed with caution. You can get a white-light solar filter (or make one yourself) for simple solar viewing. These will only show you the disc of the sun, sunspots, and, every few years, a transit of Mercury (the next transit of Venus isn't for another 100 years or so). These will not show you the solar granulation (the texture of the sun), nor solar flares/prominences. For those, you would need a dedicated solar Hydrogen Alpha kit (which is NOT the same as an Hydrogen Alpha filter for deep-sky observing). The white light filters can be made for under $30 and purchased for around $100 or less. The Hydrogen Alpha solar equipment would be several hundred dollars for your telescope. Whatever you do, do NOT use an eyepiece filter for solar observation. Some companies have produced these (I don't know if anyone still is), but they are NOT a safe option.

Ok, lastly, you asked about software. There's not much you'd need. One option is Stellarium. I believe Stellarium has drivers for Celestron telescopes, so you only need the cable connection equipment (sold separately, of course) from Celestron. However, I don't see much need for this. The hand control on your mount is just fine for finding objects, assuming you're properly aligned. A good phone or tablet app for determining what's above you right now would be helpful, but you don't need a computer connection unless you're doing imaging, and, as I said above, that's not highly recommended.

In the long run, I'd still recommend an 8" Dob instead - the 8" aperture is capable of showing you quite a bit more and doesn't require power (nor is there much to break down). But if you intend to keep this scope, you can make the most of it.

Good luck and clear skies.

Friend asked for a similar list a while ago and I put this together. Would love to see people thoughts/feedback.

Very High Level Introductions:

• Mr. Tompkins in Paperback
  
  • A super fast read that spends less time looking at the "how" but focused instead on the ramifications and impacts. Covers both GR as well as QM but is very high level with both of them. Avoids getting into the details and explaining the why.
    
    
• Einstein's Relativity and the Quantum Revolution (Great Courses lecture)
  
  • This is a great intro to the field of non-classical physics. This walks through GR and QM in a very approachable fashion. More "nuts and bolts" than Mr. Tompkins but longer/more detailed at the same time.
    
    
    Deeper Pop-sci Dives (probably in this order):
    
    
• Quantum Theory: A Very Brief Introduction
  
  • Great introduction to QM. Doesn't really touch on QFT (which is a good thing at this point) and spends a great deal of time (compared to other texts) discussing the nature of QM interpretation and the challenges around that topic.
    
• The Lightness of Being: Mass, Ether, and the Unification of Forces
  
  • Now we're starting to get into the good stuff. QFT begins to come to the forefront. This book starts to dive into explaining some of the macro elements we see as explained by QM forces. A large part of the book is spent on symmetries and where a proton/nucleon's gluon binding mass comes from (a.k.a. ~95% of the mass we personally experience).
    
• The Higgs Boson and Beyond (Great Courses lecture)
  
  • Great lecture done by Sean Carroll around the time the Higgs boson's discovery was announced. It's a good combination of what role the Higgs plays in particle physics, why it's important and what's next. Also spends a little bit of time discussing how colliders like the LHC work.
    
• Mysteries of Modern Physics: Time (Great Courses lecture)
  
  • Not really heavy on QM at all, however I think it does best to do this lecture after having a bit of the physics under your belt first. The odd nature of time symmetry in the fundamental forces and what that means with regards to our understanding of time as we experience it is more impactful with the additional knowledge (but, like I said, not absolutely required).
    
• Deep Down Things: The Breathtaking Beauty of Particle Physics
  
  • This is not a mathematical approach like "A Most Incomprehensible Thing" are but it's subject matter is more advanced and the resulting math (at least) an order of magnitude harder (so it's a good thing it's skipped). This is a "high level deep dive" (whatever that means) into QFT though and so discussion of pure abstract math is a huge focus. Lie groups, spontaneous symmetry breaking, internal symmetry spaces etc. are covered.
    
• The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory
  
  • This is your desert after working through everything above. Had to include something about string theory here. Not a technical book at all but best to be familiar with QM concepts before diving in.
    
    Blending the line between pop-sci and mathematical (these books are not meant to be read and put away but instead read, re-read and pondered):
    
    
• A Most Incomprehensible Thing: Intro to GR
  
  • Sorry, this is GR specific and nothing to do with QM directly. However I think it's a great book acting as an introduction. Definitely don't go audible/kindle. Get the hard copy. Lots of equations. Tensor calculus, Lorentz transforms, Einstein field equations, etc. While it isn't a rigorous textbook it is, at it's core, a mathematics based description not analogies. Falls apart at the end, after all, it can't be rigorous and accessible at the same time, but still well worth the read.
    
• The Theoretical Minimum: What You Need to Know to Start Doing Physics
  
  • Not QM at all. However it is a great introduction to using math as a tool for describing our reality and since it's using it to describe classical mechanics you get to employ all of your classical intuition that you've worked on your entire life. This means you can focus on the idea of using math as a descriptive tool and not as a tool to inform your intuition. Which then would lead us to...
    
• Quantum Mechanics: The Theoretical Minimum
  
  • Great introduction that uses math in a descriptive way AND to inform our intuition.
    
• The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe
  
  • Incredible book. I think the best way to describe this book is a massive guidebook. You probably won't be able to get through each of the topics based solely on the information presented in the book but the book gives you the tools and knowledge to ask the right questions (which, frankly, as anybody familiar with the topic knows, is actually the hardest part). You're going to be knocking your head against a brick wall plenty with this book. But that's ok, the feeling when the brick wall finally succumbs to your repeated headbutts makes it all worth while.

No worries, busy time for sure! I'm pretty new to Telescopes myself, my family got me my XT8 for my First Father's day this year. I've done a ton of research since then, and am always excited to share knowledge. Not a lot of people I know share my hobbies, so you can private message me anytime and I'll have fun giving advice or discussing it.

If you don't buy the XT8 off Craigslist, I'd recommend from their [Clearance page](https://www.telescope.com/2nd-Orion-SkyQuest-XT8-Classic-Dobsonian-Telescope/p/102342.uts). It's mostly returns that they've thoroughly inspected and come with a 1 year warranty. That's how I got mine and it was in New Condition, usually around 25% off.

Planets like Jupiter and Saturn are easy, they are typically the brightest objects in the sky so you really only need a phone app to tell you what days they will be in the night sky. I really like the Stellarium app, I paid for the full version but I think the free is still really good. Deep space objects (called DSOs) are things like Nebula, Galaxies and Star Clusters. Finding these can be like finding a needle in a haystack with how big our night sky is. For this I would highly recommend the book [Turn Left at Orion]( https://www.amazon.com/Turn-Left-Orion-Hundreds-Telescope/dp/1108457568/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=turn+left+at+orion&qid=1575054480&sr=8-1 ). Apps can help find these things, but looking at a phone can make you lose your night vision and you don't pick up as much detail in these DSOs. It is recommended to only use red light when using a telescope which doesn't hurt your night vision, eventually you'll want a red flashlight, [I use this one]( https://www.amazon.com/Celestron-93588-Astro-Vision-Flashlight/dp/B0000665V5/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=celestron+red+light&qid=1575054716&sr=8-2 ) which works best if you put opaque tape over the clear window in front to diffuse the light.

As far as finding objects goes you'll use a couple of things. Every telescope has a finder scope of some sort. The XT8 has a red dot finder scope, which is a little window you look through on the outside of the scope and it superimposes a red dot on the object you're looking for. So if you put the red dot on the moon say, and then look through your actual eyepiece you should be looking at the moon. It's similar to a rifle scope. For DSOs you will do what is called Star Hopping. You find a bright star that is near by what you are looking for. Then you find dimmer stars that you can still see with the naked eye. Usually I find two stars that are on either side of the object then estimate where the object should be, put my red dot here and then do a little scanning with the telescope until I find what I'm looking for. Use a low magnification lens (like the 25mm) to search. There's more scientific ways to do it, but it works for me every time. Takes some practice. It's also confusing in that if you move the scope one way, it might make the image in the scope move the opposite direction. It takes practice and patience, but with time it becomes 2nd nature.

The included 10mm and 25mm are pretty good for planets and the moon, but will fall short for DSOs. If you're willing to spend another ~$100 dollars right out the gate on accessories I'd buy a [zoom lens]( https://www.amazon.com/Celestron-93230-24mm-1-25-Eyepiece/dp/B0007UQNV8/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=8-24+zoom&qid=1575055505&sr=8-1) that allows you to change the magnification and an [eyepiece that provides higher magnification]( https://www.amazon.com/SVBONY-Telescope-Eyepiece-Accessories-Astronomy/dp/B07JWDFMZ4/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=svbony%2B6&qid=1575055611&sr=8-1&th=1) (get the 6 mm option) than the zoom or the provided lenses. Later, if you want to spend another ~$130 on more options at eyepiece I'd by the 9mm option from the 2nd link there and a [wide angle lens]( https://www.amazon.com/Agena-Super-Wide-Angle-Eyepiece/dp/B00YO60I9E/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=agena+32&qid=1575055724&sr=8-2) that makes it easier to find objects by showing more of the night sky. When in comes to eyepieces, make sure you know the math of magnification. You take the Focal Length of the scope, 1200mm for the XT8, and divide it by the number in mm on an eyepiece. I.e. a 12 mm eyepiece would be 1200/12 = 100x magnification. Don't bother with Barlows, a Zoom takes care of that by giving you an infinite spectrum between 50 - 150x and the 6 mm gives your 200x. That is plenty for basically all viewing conditions.

The [Moon Brightness Filter]( https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B076MP3T66/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1) is nice if the Moon hurts your eyes to look at, but it might be worth just looking at the moon first before spending the $20. You can't actually hurt your eyes looking, but it can definitely shock your eye. Also, higher magnification always means dimmer so zooming in can naturally act as a filter. I wouldn't bother with other filters. Most are crap and don't contribute much.

In summary: To really feel prepared when going out for the first time you should have a book that you studied ahead of time for what you want to look for (The book is broken down by Season and what is viewable during that time) and a red light to see the book. The provided 25mm will be okay to search with, and the 10mm will let you see more of it, but you will want something better soon like the zoom or the 6mm Svbony lens. Make sure your Telescope is [collimated]( https://lovethenightsky.com/telescope-collimation-for-complete-beginners/) and your finder scope is lined up with your scope (the Telescope manual walks through this, do it during the day). Bring chairs and warm clothing. Lastly bring your patience. Hope this was helpful with how long it was, and I hope you and your kiddo have a ball!

I posted this response to the supposed 'emptiness' of a secular life, on a different sub:

Try reading this book: https://www.amazon.com/Cosmos-Carl-Sagan/dp/0345539435/

The universe is an astounding place- just our galaxy has hundreds of billions of suns, and there are hundreds of billions of galaxies. It is mindbogglingly huge.

Life is astounding. Evolving on our planet for a billion years, from single cells to human consciousness, trees, insects, whales, birds, dinosaurs, and countless millions of life forms in between.

Have you watched David Attenborough's Planet Earth series? It is so beautiful it will make you cry: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02544td

Have you been to the Metropolitan Museum of Art or the MOMA in NYC, or your local art or natural history museum?

How about laughter? Comedy brings me great joy. I watch the Daily Show, Bill Maher, and have enjoyed other series over the years, but I realize comedy is highly culture-specific.

Exercise? If you are feeling down, going for a jog or workout is a great natural endorphin rush.

Food! Do you like to cook? This is another wonderful joy in life.

Do you have friends? Even if you are in an isolated place, with mostly fundamentalist religious people, perhaps there are others you can talk to, and if not, be glad that we live in 2018 and you have the internet!

I wish you luck. It takes great courage and strength to acknowledge that your previous way of life was based on a collective delusion, even if it was a comforting one. But:

“The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.” ― Flannery O'Connor

>rigid (biological) materialism

What is rigid about considering life a material phenomenon? We have no indication of any kind of reality other than material.

>what is Time?

That's a physics question. Here is a book by Sean Carroll that covers science's best (and always tentative) models on the subject.

>If you're measuring a pulse or taking an MRI scan, it's pretty silly to conveniently forget that you're sitting on a 4 billion year old rock, dealing with the nuclear dust of stars long passed.

Yes, Carl Sagan pointed out that we are stardust. It's well known, and I don't think anyone has forgotten about it.

>Does "Love" exist?

Yes, as an emotion.

>Does the number "7" exist?

Yes, as an abstraction. The symbol stands for a mathematical quantity. And the Prince song.

>The literal idea of love.

Yes, but love literally exists as an emotion. It has no existence independent of emotions, no more than patriotism or optimism exist independently of the minds of conscious agents.

> We consider love as an eternal idea.

But few mean that literally. Humans have always had love, and probably other animals feel something analogous to love, but life has not always existed here. If you believe that the universe has always existed and that there have always been worlds populated by life complex to have emotions, then possibly you can argue that love is actually eternal. I can't speak on that.

>We say, there is such a thing as "absolute morality."

Which seems to mean just that we're really really sure. We're expressing the intensity of our conviction. Then there are theists, some of whom call their version of what they think God said objective and inerrant. But that's another issue. There is always someone claiming to speak for God.

> but it seems silly to think a "better physics" or "better biology" could in principle shed any light at all on "the nature of the soul" (that is, psyche)

Soul, mind, spirit, seem to be metaphors for consciousness, awareness, mind, whatever. If you think that science has nothing to say about the mind, about cognition, learning, memory, or perception, I would argue that you aren't really trying.

>back then they would have readily acknowledged the reality of angels and gods

Believing in something isn't "acknowledging the reality" of that something. That phrasing begs the question. They also "acknowledged the reality" of gods or spirits causing lightning, disease, earthquakes, etc.

>why are we continually hard-pressed to justify ourselves before the faithful?

What am I justifying, exactly? That I don't see any reason to believe in God? Science is, so far as I can tell, the only way we have of learning about the world out there. Religion and faith were basically failed sciences. When there was a plague, they prayed and built churches. Science actually works. It's not perfect, and will never make us omniscient (so far as I can tell) but the alternative is... what? Believing that Zeus made the lightning? You actually consider that an improvement over science?

Former NASA employee here!

What got me interested in space was manned spaceflight - at that time, the Space Shuttle. I know she's into astrophysics, but if that's too awkward around the family why not try to get her interested in things like ISS? You could show her the research they're doing on ISS having to do with space science:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/experiments/facilities_hardware.html#Earth_and_Space_Science



You could also show teach her about female astronauts and scientists. Sally Ride was a HUGE inspiration to me growing up (when my grandfather told me I had to be a nurse or a teacher because I was a girl!). Eileen Collins (first female Shuttle commander) would be a good role model, too.

Here's the NASA astrophysics page:

http://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/

I'd show her that, too.



Here's Neil deGrasse Tyson's autobiography, about growing up and becoming an astrophysicist. I've read it and it's not a hard read:

http://www.amazon.com/Sky-Not-Limit-Adventures-Astrophysicist-ebook/dp/B0030I1XNM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1413845530&sr=8-1&keywords=the+sky+is+not+the+limit


Here's another Tyson book that I haven't read so I can't speak to it but she may enjoy it because it's all about space:

http://www.amazon.com/Death-Black-Hole-Cosmic-Quandaries/dp/039335038X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1413845568&sr=8-2&keywords=neil+tyson


I loved books and magazines on space at that age. Get her a subscription to Sky and Telescope or Scientific American?


Here are more book suggestions:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2012/04/05/crowdsource-what-are-good-astronomy-books-for-kids/#.VEWTkIcgxWI


Let me know how it goes! It's VERY important to keep her interest! A 14 year old girl actually discovered a supernova, so that might be of interest to her. http://www.shakesville.com/2009/06/amazing-women.html

Good luck!


Edit: Is she on Twitter? If so, here are some scientists she can follow: http://news.sciencemag.org/scientific-community/2014/09/top-50-science-stars-twitter#full-list

If she's on Facebook she could also "Like" science pages.

> Would the Star Adventurer be controllable by ASCOM?

To the best of my knowledge, no...I don't know of an ASCOM driver for the SA, it not being a GoTo mount. However, if memory serves, it DOES have a guide port, so it's possible there's something out there.

> How would I use APT, Stellarium, and the tracking mount to do automated plate solving?

No experience with APT, so I can't speak to details of configuration. I know it will DO plate solving though.

Stellarium doesn't really enter into the equation here as far as plate solving goes, though I suppose you could use its Sync command to sync the mount once you found where you were.

---

Without a GoTo mount you're unlikely to have any success automating the plate solving process. While there's dozens of different utilities to DO plate solving, and dozens more for sequencing and ASCOM device control and so on, the general process is going to be the same...and require a GoTo mount :

1. Ask mount where it thinks it is.
   

• Take picture
  
• Plate Solve picture
  
• Tell mount where it actually is
  
• Tell mount to slew to desired RA/Dec
  
• Repeat 1-5 until "Mount thinks it's at X" and "Mount is actually at X" agree.
  
  What you CAN do however is exactly what you asked about, manually :
  
  > So I guess I’m looking for guidance with finding, framing, and focusing with a motorized mount.
  
  
• Use Stellarium, google, whatever, to get the RA and Dec of the object you want to image.
  
• Polar align your mount (a topic in and of itself)
  
• Use Stellarium, or whatever other "planetarium software" you wish, or Star Charts, or a copy of Turn Left At Orion to point yourself more or less in the right place.
  
• Take a picture
  
• Upload/feed/open/post that image to whatever your platesolving engine of choice is. The astrometry link above is probably the easiest option here
  
• Get the results. They will tell you exactly what RA and Dec your scope was pointing at when it took that picture.
  
• Use setting circles, hand controller, or a wild guess that you eventually get better at with experience, and adjust your mount in RA and Dec in the direction of your intended target.
  
• Lather, rinse, repeat.
  
  ---
  
  Is this "better" than "Take a long exposure and hope you see the target"? Who knows? Depends on a zillion variables like "How faint is the target?" and "How sensitive is the camera?" and "How patient is OP?" and "How good is OP at recognizing other objects/star patterns/indications nearby?" and so on. None of us can know all those variables.
  
  Some of us enjoy "star hopping". Maybe you're one of those. If so, then ignore all this and just...shoot a pic, find the same pattern in stellarium, and move where you need to. Don't sell this method short..it's a great way to learn your way around the sky, and you never know what other cool thing will show up as some faint fuzzy in your frame, and distract you from your intended target!
  
  However, platesolving is a repeatable and exact method of finding your target that eliminates a great many of those variables. Plate solve an image your camera took, and you will know, with no doubt or uncertainty, exactly where your telescope is pointed. 99% of success in this hobby is removing uncertainty and guesswork wherever you can. :)

I had a great great grandmother we called Nana. She was the oldest of 13 children and took care and helped raise them all. When she was about 13 (I think) she moved her family from Cape Breton, Canada to Rhode Island and hand sewed handkerchiefs (because that was a woman's job) to help take care of her siblings. She built the large, French-Canadian, loud, ginger, wine-loving family that I am proud to be a part of today. When she got mad at us, or we did something not to her liking, she would raise her hand like she was about to slap someone and would said "don't make me give you one of these" while waving her hand in your face... as she got older she would say it from across the room, but her hand was always raised. When I was 14, she was 96, and she woke up one day and made a blueberry pie. When the pie was out cooling down, she called my great aunt and said "take me to the hospital, I'm going to die." I kid you not, not even 24 hours later she was dead. My great aunt then came home from the hospital and froze the pie. When our family gathered together to celebrate her life, we ate the pie (after a lobster dinner of course... the were in Rhode Island). Nothing has ever tasted better.

I would love this book. I love love love Mary Roach and I really enjoy learning and my fiance and I would totally read it out loud with each other.

For cheap/free accessories, here are my recommendations:

Find a local astronomy club and go to a few meetings. Astronomy clubs love new members, and they'll answer every question you have. If they have an open observing event, bring your telescope and you might even get to try a few of the accessories others have mentioned. You may get to see what Saturn looks like in your telescope with a 10mm EP and barlow before you buy.

Also, there are club members with old EPs for sale. Somebody's always upgrading their collection and looking for a new home for their old Plossls.

If you have basic woodworking skills, you can make a Denver Observing Chair for <$30. I think I made mine from these plans, but there are plans and how-to's all over the web. It beats hunching over the eyepiece for hours. Your back will thank you.

An accessory case is nice to have. Keep all your stuff in one place, and you won't accidentally forget something when you go out to observe. I use this 4-pistol case for $20 from Amazon.

If you're learning the night sky, get a planisphere and go out with it for 10 minutes once a week for some naked eye observing. Learn a new constellation each time. I think WV is in the 30-40 degree north range? Or for free you can download and print the map each month from SkyMaps.com

For getting started finding interesting stuff in the telescope, a book like Turn Left at Orion was a great help for me. Step-by-step instructions for star-hopping to the best and brightest stuff in the sky.

The absolute best telescopes for beginners is a good 8 inch dobsonion. If you are willing to take the time to learn the night sky and don't need goto a good one is 400 or so new. For 650 you can get a push to 8 inch scope that allows you to tell it what you want to see and it will tell you how to push the scope to see it. True motorized ones are much more expensive

The reason 8 inches is the best starters is it's big enough to provide great views of everything from the moon, the major planets and all the brightest deep space objects. The dobsonion type scope is easy to setup,very stable, and light enough that it's not a big production to get it out and ready.

If you get a scope order the book "turn left at Orion" on Amazon. It is a great book that gives you easy to understand directions on where to point a scope any time of the year to see the best objects currently in the sky. Also see if there are any astronomy clubs in your area because they are normally very willing to help you get started

Astrophotography is a whole other can of worms and requires specialized telescopes mounts cameras etc

Below are some examples of Scopes and good reading:
https://www.amazon.com/SkyWatcher-S11610-Traditional-Dobsonian-8-Inch/dp/B00Z4G3PRK/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?keywords=skywatcher+dobsonian+8&qid=1569033244&s=gateway&sprefix=skywatcher+dobs&sr=8-3


https://www.telescope.com/mobileProduct/Telescopes/Dobsonian-Telescopes/Classic-Dobsonians/Orion-Limited-Edition-SkyQuest-XT8-Classic-Dobsonian-Bundle/pc/1/c/12/sc/13/101452.uts

https://www.telescope.com/mobileProduct/Telescopes/Dobsonian-Telescopes/IntelliScope-Dobsonians/Orion-SkyQuest-XT8i-IntelliScope-Dobsonian-Telescope/pc/1/c/12/sc/27/102012.uts

https://www.amazon.com/Turn-Left-Orion-Hundreds-Telescope/dp/1108457568/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?keywords=turn+left+at+orion&qid=1569034887&s=gateway&sprefix=turn+left&sr=8-1

You can get some good views of the gas giants. Assuming you are in the continental U.S., Saturn should be viewable shortly after sunset and Jupiter should be viewable shortly before sunrise. Saturn would probably look better than Jupiter with your binoculars.

You should also be able to see Andromeda's galaxy around this time of the year. I can't say for certain how much detail you can get out of it but with good light conditions, I'd be willing to bet you'd be able to see the disk.

Star clusters are where binoculars really shine (sometimes even providing better views than telescopes), you might want to take a look at the list of Messier objects to find some good star clusters to look at. Make sure that you take a look at the Seven Sisters this fall, it is definitely my favorite star cluster.

If you are new, you should really invest in a good planisphere such as this one. Just make sure to get one for your correct latitude. You should also get some sort of red light, whether a red LED flashlight, a regular light with a filter, or just a flash light you have lying around with some red cellophane or brake light repair tape on it. There are even books specifically for binocular astronomy that might be a good investment.

Most importantly, have fun and clear skies!

Time is technically a dimension, but it's a dimension which is only relative because we chose the speed of light to be our constant. It makes the math easier. The idea of multiple dimensions beyond the fourth is again exactly that - something to make the math easier. The more you study the various models for quantum mechanics or relativity, the more you realize that each model does one thing well...and that it does everything else poorly.

I understand that your premise is that you believe we can imagine the difference between n and n+1 dimensional experiences for values of n <= 3, and you want to expand that to n > 3 to include a model for God's experience with creation, but it just doesn't work that way. It's an interesting thing to do if you're writing a physics text for the greater population. It's like when Susskind wrote this book and included the bit about black holes being a hologram whose event horizon was determined by the amount of information unretrievable (since his whole point is that no info is lost), and that the surface area of the event horizon is equal to the number of bits of information contained in the black hole if you assume that the Planck length is the smallest surface area capable of containing the bit.

That leads to the model of the event horizon and black holes where the information is correctly encoded on the event horizon, and that as energy is given off by the black hole the event horizon decreases by a corresponding area to represent the information ejected by the radiation.

He then makes the fantastic leap of conjecturing that perhaps the entire observable universe is a giant black hole and we live inside it...which would make all of us holograms projected onto the inside of the black hole from our bits of information encoded on the event horizon...which to us is the boundaries of our known universe/singularity.

It's an interesting idea, but to take that idea (or the n+1 analogy of dimensional analysis you're doing with time) and apply it to the theology of a very real and non-theoretical God would be to misunderstand the limitations of our model, and to unjustly limit God to the rules and limits He placed on the observable universe.

You'll forgive me for ignoring the "symmetric bilinear form" but even the wikipedia article references it as a generalization and not to be correctly used without additional terms in any practical application...like explaining the nature of God.

Great, glad you find it useful. I cannot recommend it highly enough - it's very soul-enriching, especially in the modern technology age where it's about cramming as many megapixels of saturated color into your retina as quickly as possible. If you are fortunate enough to live in an area with low light pollution, you should definitely consider taking it up!

There are many excellent books out there, and also a pair of good binoculars cannot be beat (like a solid pair of 10x50s from an astronomical manufacturer like Meade or Celestron). For alignment, you can get one of the fancy GPS-guided "go-to" telescopes, or you can get an old school Tel-rad. My favorite books for learning the hobby when growing up were the Peterson's Field Guide to Stars & Planets, the Backyard Astronomer's Guide by Terence Dickinson, and a couple of books on star-hopping. There may be better ones now, definitely check Amazon. I also find the various tablet "Virtual Sky" apps really fun, although you can't really take a tablet out with you because it'll ruin your night vision. Red marker + saran wrap + low power flashlight is the key.

And if you want a nice, easy-to-read and enlightening book to ground yourself in the rich history of several millennia of human astronomy, you should check out Timothy Ferris's Coming of Age in the Milky Way - it was accessible and engaging for me, even as a 13 year old.

I have 0 experience with incarceration, but I have loads of experience with books. Not sure his interests, but here are a few books I adore:

The Lies of Locke Lamora - Basically an Ocean's 11 heist story set in a world similar to Game of Thrones.

The Name of the Wind - (from the Amazon description) The riveting first-person narrative of a young man who grows to be the most notorious magician his world has ever seen.

Cosmos - Carl Sagan saw the best in our species. This book is what the TV series was based on.

I would encourage your friend to read text books as well while he is inside as well. Pick a topic they have an interest in, and find an older textbook on the subject. For me that would be this book. Not a topic I was educated on, but something I have an interest in.

Thank you for supporting your friend!

>Would I be wrong in stating from your post that you believe that belief or disbelief in evolution is a salvation issue?

You conclusion are close. That the belief of evolution **COULD"" jeopardize our salvation. Jesus said the words below we must worship with spirit and truth. Truth is what God reveals to us first and foremost.

(John 4:23-24) . . .Nevertheless, the hour is coming, and it is now, when the true worshipers will worship the Father with spirit and truth, for, indeed, the Father is looking for suchlike ones to worship him. 24 God is a Spirit, and those worshiping him must worship with spirit and truth.

Now please dont take this stance as im against science, nothing could be further from the truth. I love science and am looking forward to using everlasting life in perfect health and mind (on earth). To explore all paths of the different science spending no less then 1000 year on each. And I have already started with Brian Green The Fabric of the Cosmos and Einsteins theory of relativity,while listening to MIT online lecture about Astro-physics.

My point is if God did use evolution wait on him to reveal that from his mouth, we dont want to run ahead of him and put our faith in things that remove him form the equation like Adam and Eve.

I have the same unit but w/o the motor drive.

William Herschel said that using a telescope is like a musical instrument - you have to PRACTICE.

I found the directions for setting up the equatorial mount tripod not very user friendly (makes sense if you already understand it, though!).

There are other videos, but I found this one hit all the bases:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plx6XXDgf2E
...and he's a regular Redditor.

I also found, with this same unit, that the finder was completely useless. Even adjusting the knobs, the finder didn't zero onto the subject! I ended up removing it. These Telrad finders are considered tops for a reason. You may luck out with the factory supplied one, however, your time will be a total waste of time if your finder doesn't work.

Turn Left at Orion. Yes, it's that good.

Get Stellarium and find out what's going on!

Get a planetsphere. You may get that Star Atlas with Pegasus on the cover, but I have yet to use it.

PLAN your sessions. Using Stellarium look at what the night's going to look like and pick some objects. Do some research on them. Honestly, you're not going to find the 6th moon of Pluto, but you can see the rings of Saturn and the blue hue in Alberio. Learn to find the constellations, certainly the big ones. Read up on their lore. It's fascinating.

ALL good science requires a LOG. Get a nice notebook and write down what you do.

Before I go out, I take the planetsphere and make a copy of the sky that night (I have a scanner/printer) and put circles where the planet(s) and other targets will be. Write a date on the printout, the location, and label the targets with numbers.

Nothing like going through everything and then packing up and driving home THINKING you forgot something. Make a checklist of the telescope parts!

Also, take a pair of binoculars with you.

I hope your first nights go more smoothly than mine!

I've been exploring this recently. I'm not an expert, but I'll do my best to explain it.


The shape or object represented in the gif you posted is called a tesseract or a hypercube. You can search for these terms for more information.


To explain this, some basics about 2D and 3D must first be established to understand how to continue the explanation to 4D.


A super-brief explanation of the gif above as the four dimension object (spatially) is that it is a representation or projection of viewing a 4D object/shape in a 2D view. (That gif as displayed on our computer screens is 2D because our screens are 2D and it's not encoded as 3D to be viewed with 3D glasses) and a 4-D object or shape actually appears to us to be 3D objects inside of 3D objects, just as if we look at a 2D object - say a square drawn on a piece of paper - we are able to see inside of the 2D object and see additional objects drawn inside of it and just as we are only able to draw a 3D object on a piece of paper if it is drawn as a transparent outline, this gif shows the 4D object drawn as a transparent outline in which we only see the many sides folding in and outside of itself. A being that is capable of seeing four spatial dimensions would be able to look at you and see inside of you. The following demonstrates this concept pretty well:


Fourth Spatial Dimension 101 (video, 6:27)



To better understand the concept of the fourth dimension, read on. I also included more videos below, including an excellent one by Carl Sagan.


-------------------------------------------------------------------------


First, some facts / definitions:

• 0D (zero spatial dimension) is simply a point. It either exists or does not exist. There is no concept of a point moving in 0 dimensions because there is no space for it to move.
  
  
• 1D (one spatial dimension) is simply a line. It has length. A point can move along the line from side to side, left or right.
  
  
• 2D (two spatial dimensions) is a plane. It has length and width. A point can exist and/or move from side to side lengthwise and side to side width-wise, left or right, and (if we imagine the plane as a flat surface that's level to the ground,) then we can call the width direction either forward and back, if we imagine looking at the plane on a wall, we might call it up or down. Either is fine. Two dimensions.
  
  
• 3D (three spatial dimensions) is technically called "3-dimensional Euclidean space" but since it's what we commonly perceive, we often just refer to it as "space." It has length and width and height. Other words can be used for these directions, as long as it's three separate directions not in the same plane, such as left-right, up-down, and forward-back.
  
  
• 4D (four spatial dimensions) is known simply as four-dimensional space, probably because we don't use it in conversation enough to have a nifty, shorter term for it. There is also a non-spatial version of four dimensions commonly referred to as "spacetime" which is a combination of 3D space and time.
  
  
  
• A special note about the fourth dimension... Space vs time as a fourth dimension are differentiated as such: time as the fourth dimension is referred to as the Minkowski continuum, known as spacetime, and the spatial-only dimensions are referred to as Euclidean space or dimensions. Spacetime is not Euclidean space; it is not only spatial. (The gif you linked above is a representation of the spatial fourth dimension. ..yes, it includes time to show it rotating. If you were to consider it as a spacetime dimension then it would be 5 dimensions: 4 spatial plus time, but it is commonly referred to simply as spatial in my understanding.)
  
  
  --------------------------------------------------------------
  
  
  Conceptualizing the limitations and advantages of dimensional perception:
  
  
  
• Beings that can perceive in 2D can see inside of objects that are 1D.
  
  
• Beings that can perceive in 3D can see inside of objects that are 2D.
  
  
• Beings that can perceive in 4D can see inside of objects that are 3D.
  
  
• Beings that can perceive in 1D can only see representations or projections of 2D objects.
  
  
• Beings that can perceive in 2D can only see representations or projections of 3D objects.
  
  
• Beings that can perceive in 3D can only see representations or projections of 4D objects.
  
  
  
  
  
  We are able to perceive objects spatially in 3 dimensions (3D). By spatially, we mean that we're interpreting the environment or world's space, and not considering the fourth dimension as something other than space, such as time. (The gif linked above is of a four-dimensional object of which the fourth dimension is also space.) When we look at a drawing of a square on a piece of paper, we are able to see not only its length and width, but also inside of it because we are viewing it from above - from height. If we look down at it and draw a triangle inside of it, we can see both at the same time. We are able to see inside of 2D objects. A 3D object is comprised of several layers of 2D objects stacked upon one another. So imagine the 2D drawing, and stacking many papers on top of each other until it's several inches or centimeters tall. That's a 3D object now. Then, shape it into a square at each sheet of paper (so cut through all sheets) and you will end up with a cube of paper. Shape it into a triangle and it will be a triangular, pie-like shape. Angle it more narrow on the way up and it will be a pyramid-like shape. With any of these shapes, we cannot see inside of it. But now imagine this: just as we in the 3rd dimension looking at a shape in the 2nd dimension can see inside of it, a being in the 4th dimension looking at a shape in the 3rd dimension can see inside of the 3D object. That is because just like there is only length and width in the 2nd dimension, but no height; in the third dimension we have length width and height, but no __. I'm unaware of whether there is a name for the additional direction that would exist in the fourth dimension.
  
  
  I also don't know whether a 4th spatial dimension actually exists or is just an abstract concept, nor do I know whether it is possible or known to be possible to detect. As far as I am aware, the fourth spacial dimension is only known of abstractly, meaning that there is no evidence for it actually existing.
  
  
  ------------------------------------
  
  
  These videos explain how to understand what the 4th dimension would look like:
  
  
  Dr. Quantum explains the 4th dimension (video, 5:09)
  
  An oversimplified explanation from the movie "What the bleep do we know: down the rabbit hole" in which the character, Dr.Quantum, first explains what an (imagined) 2D world (flatland) would look like to us - who are able to see the 3D world, as a way of understanding (or extrapolating) how a being that could see in the 4D world would be able to see through and inside of 3D objects. (note: I've been warned that this is part of a video that goes on to some cult-like recruiting, so please be forewarned about the video's conclusion and entirety.)
  
  
  Cosmos - Carl Sagan - 4th Dimension (video, 7:24)
  
  Carl Sagan explains how to imagine what the 4th dimension looks if we were able to see it and how it would allow us to see inside 3D objects. An important part of this video is explaining and showing exactly how and why we can only see a distorted version of 4D objects since we only see in 3D
  
  
  4th Dimension Explained By A High-School Student (video, 9:05)
  
  An excellent description of the first through fourth dimension and how we can perceive them.
  
  
  Unwrapping a tesseract (4d cube aka hypercube) (video, 1:39)
  
  
  Hypercube (video, 3:18)
  
  Watch the above two videos to see how we can conceptualize a 4D object in 3D space.
  
  
  Videos mentioned elsewhere in this comment:
  
  
  Fourth Spatial Dimension 101 (video, 6:27)
  
  
  Flatland (video, 1:39:56)
  
  
  --------------------------------------
  
  
  Videos, Books and Links mentioned by other redditors:
  
  
  Flatland: a romance of many dimensions (Illustrated) by Edwin Abbott Abbott (book, free, ~230kb)
  
  Amazon description & reviews
  
  hat-tip to /u/X3TIT
  
  
  "Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe's Hidden Dimensions" by Lisa Randall (Amazon book page)"
  
  Looks interesting.
  
  hat-tip to /u/karoyamaro
  
  
  
  -----------------------------------
  
  (Edited: 1- to add video lengths; 2- added book links, 3 - readability more videos, 4 - a warning about the Dr. Quantum video.)
  

Pistachio butter Would make a great unique gift.

Cosmos and Neil DeGrasse Tyson related

One of Louis C. K.'s DVDs. All his DVDs are pretty cheap on Amazon.

Mets wallet

So much Licorice!

Fun book all about New York.

You're sweet to want to treat him to gifts. Happy early Birthday to your dad! I love shopping for others.

Edit to add coffee Community Coffee is made in New Orleans and living in South Louisiana it's the coffee king down here. Where I live there is a CC's coffee house on every corner like Starbucks in Seattle. I had to recommend this coffee to you for your dad. The Cafe El Special is the smoothest greatest coffee.

Submission Statement: On November 2016, David Deutsch and Sam Harris did a podcast together. The purpose of that podcast was for David Deutsch to attempt to explain where Sam Harris went wrong or could improve upon his The Moral Landscape idea.

David is a Popperian and has built upon Popper’s work in his two books The Fabric of Reality and The Beginning of Infinity. This podcast sparked my interest in Popper and at the time I did not understand the disagreement between David and Sam. I asked the question and Brett Hall who is an expert (doubt he’d enjoy that label) on Popper and Deutsche was kind enough to make a video explaining their differences.

The reason I decided to transcribe this video is that I have found that comparing and contrasting Sam’s epistemology to that of Popper’s has been super helpful in better understanding Critical Rationalism, which is what Popper called his Philosophy. I have read Popper and Deutsch for a year since and have barely scratched the surface.

You do not necessarily need to listen to the Podcast to get the meat of this content, Brett does a great job presenting both their ideas clearly and their differences as well.

Anyway, here are some interesting bits from the video.

>The majority of people who have an alternative epistemology, something other than what Karl Popper views knowledge as for example, they think that knowledge is about justified true belief. They think that you need to begin with the foundation and on that foundation then you accumulate knowledge, you build it up. And this is an anti critical vision about how knowledge is created. In the Popperian view, you simply have problems, you can start anywhere at all and you attempt to solve those problems when you have them. When you have ideas that are in conflict with one another by using a critical method, it's a completely different vision.

On What Morality is,

>So instead, just to preface, what morality really consists of, it's about solving moral problems. And in order to solve moral problems, we have to conjecture explanations about what might improve things. And they can always be false. We can always criticize them.

There is no need for bedrock,

>Okay. So again, David says that moral theory should be approached like scientific theories. They don't need foundations. They don't need foundations. There are a lot of theories out there, a lot of moral theories like, Kant's categorical imperative, or Rawl's fairness or stuff that comes out of the Bible the golden rule et cetera, et cetera. Whatever your moral theory happens to be or indeed Sam's wellbeing of conscious creatures. All of these, these principles, these ideas, these theories should be seen as critiques, as critiques of each other or as critiques of any other theory that someone proposes or as a critique of a solution that someone proposes.
>
>They shouldn't be seen as foundations from which you begin to build up everything else.

There is a lot of great information in here not just about morality, there’s a bit about politics, creativity, and perhaps most groundbreaking in my estimation, David’s explanation of what a person is.

I hope this is helpful!

Other Links:

• David Deutsch and Sam Harris Podcast
  
• Brett Hall's essay critique of The Moral Landscape for "The Moral Landscape Challenge"
  
• Artificial Creativity Podcast

I know I’m showing up a bit late, but I absolutely have to recommend The Black Hole War: My Battle with Stephen Hawking to Make the World Safe for Quantum Mechanics by Leonard Susskind:

https://www.amazon.com/Black-Hole-War-Stephen-Mechanics/dp/0316016411

I know it might sound like an overly-specific or technical book, and the title gives the impression that the author has a chip on his shoulder about Stephen Hawking, but I can assure you that neither of those things are the case!

The story of the “war” itself is really just about how Susskind and Hawking had a friendly scientific disagreement over whether it’s theoretically possible to retrieve something after it enters a black hole. They discussed it for years, and eventually it was Stephen Hawking who admitted he was wrong.

But the reason I’m mentioning the book is that it does an amazing job of explaining everything. Susskind knows that in order to write a story about the black hole war that people will actually find interesting, he has to explain black holes, gravity, light, and quantum physics in ways that normal people can understand. And he does!

The book isn’t amazing because it’s a story about someone who proved to Stephen Hawking that he was wrong. It’s amazing because when you’re finished with it, you’ll actually understand why he was wrong, and why it’s so important.

Other people have suggested some great books, and it’s never too late to go back to school, but if you want a book that will really spark your passion and motivation, I can’t recommend this book enough.

Now I’m all hyped and feel like I should read it again...

First article: http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/12/12/opinion/can-evolution-have-a-higher-purpose.html

There's a link in there to another article that is also good.

Here's a talk given at a Mormon transhumanist conference. It's not really tied to mormonism, especially not this talk.

https://youtu.be/Q4jYlKavkmQ

The guy speaking is a friend of mine, and he describes himself as an agnostic, leaning toward the theist side. His definition of god is very different from the typical definition. It's more like the process of evolution heading towards more complexity and more cooperation, it is possible that there is something directing that. Of course there is no conclusive proof, there really cannot be, but it is still interesting to think about.

I also like a concept called the arrow of time. Here's a fun music video for an intro.

https://youtu.be/i6rVHr6OwjI

Look in the description for a link to the lecture that inspired the music video. The professor is Sean Carroll, and my friend recommends his book, https://www.amazon.com/Eternity-Here-Quest-Ultimate-Theory/dp/0452296544

I hope that helps!

Even though you want the full tensor treatment, I would first go through Ryden and make sure you understand the basics well. This is a great undergraduate standard written at the level for those who know "calculus, linear algebra and classical mechanics" and teaches the undergraduate level basics as well as anything.


After this, the standard modern graduate texts are Modern Cosmology by Dodelson and Physical Foundations of Cosmology by Mukhanov. Both use tensors and the full GR treatment with the former, in my opinion, being an easier text (which I think have some great initial chapters describing GR) but Mukonov going through some very advanced concepts like renormalization in quantum field theory, etc...

In addition to textbooks, Baumann's lecture notes on inflation are very good.

Good luck.

No particular order:

Blind Descent by James M. Tabor. It is a great book about cave exploration and the race to discover the worlds deepest supercave.

A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking. Are you interested in the universe and how it all happened? This gives some pretty insightful answers.

From Eternity To Here by Sean Carrol. A really interesting view on the nature and concept of time and how it relates to the us and the universe. It can get a bit deep from time to time, but I found it fascinating.

Adventures Among Ants by Mark W. Moffet. It's about ants. Seriously. Ants.

The Worst Journey in the World by Apsley Cherry-Garrard. A first hand account of the ill-fated Scott expedition to the south pole in 1911-1912. Even after reading the book I cannot imagine what those men went through.

Bonus book: The Dragons of Eden by Carl Sagan. Human intelligence and how it evolved. Some really interesting stuff about the brain and how it works. A very enjoyable read.

The best book I’ve found for locating things in Sky is Turn Left at Orion. Has illustrations for where to look for different objects, what they should look like so you know when you’re there, as well as ease of seeing based on type of telescope.
As for collimating, there are a few ways to, and plenty of YouTube videos on how to. Easiest is with a laser collimator. But unless you know someone who has one, cost money. Another involves lining up with a bright star, usually Polaris as it doesn’t move, moving your focus out until the star looks like a donut, then adjusting your collation into the “hole” is in the center.
Another option is to look up any local astronomy clubs to you and see if they have any public outreach events. The purpose of these events is for the general public to come out and view. Those with new gear are always welcome to come out to be helped with their new stuff as we (as amateur astronomers) would rather have someone with an interest know how to use their gear and enjoy the experience than get frustrated and give up the hobby altogether.
Hope this helped.

This was the one that we used for Cosmology. It starts pretty gentle but moves into the metric tensor fairly quickly. If you don't have the maths I don't know that it'll help you to understand them but it'll definitely have all the terms and equations. As with Dirac's Principles of Quantum Mechanics, the funny haired man himself actually had a pretty approachable work from what I remember when I tried reading it.

​

This one has been sitting on my shelf waiting to be read. Given the authors reputation for popularizing astrophysics and the title I think it might be a good place to start before you hit the other ones.

Looking on their website it seems as if they do not let outside people borrow from their library, sorry :(.

I know many libraries have "partnerships" for the lack of a better word, where if you try to borrow a book from the library, and they don't have it, they will request it from somewhere else they are partnered with and get it for you.

Some ideas of books:

For my undergraduate astrophysics class I used - Foundations of Astrophysics by Ryden and Peterson, ISBN13: 978-0-321-59558-4

I have also used (more advanced, graduate level) - An Introduction to Modern Astrophysics by Carroll and Ostlie, ISBN13: 978-0-805-30402-2

There are plenty of other undergraduate text books for astrophysics, but those are the only two I have experience with.

Some other books that may be just fun reads and aren't text books:

A Brief History of Time - Hawking

QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter - Feynman

Random popular science books:

Parallel Worlds - Kaku (or anything else by him Michio Kaku)

Cosmos - Sagan

Dark Cosmos - Hooper

or anything by Green, Krauss, Tyson, etc.

Videos to watch:

I would also suggest, if you have an hour to burn, watching this video by Lawrence Krauss. I watched it early on in my physics career and loved it, check it out:

Lawrence Krauss - A Universe From Nothing

Also this video is some what related:

Sean Carroll - Origin of the Universe and the Arrow of Time

Hope you enjoy!

Edit: Formatting.

I am an ME major EE minor and would agree it is a better route to aerospace. But that need not stop you from studying aerospace topics!

I think an awesome space engineering (if you are interested in astronautics) book you can jump into without a lot of heavy pre-requisites is SMAD (http://www.amazon.com/Space-Mission-Engineering-Technology-Library/dp/1881883159/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1462136211&sr=8-1&keywords=smad). If you are having fun it is easier to learn, rather than trying to plow through a calculus or thermodynamics book. Edit: But get the 3rd edition, not the most recent one.

Other really good options would be to get hands on experience building stuff, programming & wiring arduinos and building stuff at a hackerspace. Building a 3D printer from a kit would be a good starting point.

Further reading/research: (Not all of which I've gotten to read yet. Some of which may be quite tangentially relevant to the discussion at hand along with the books and sites I mentioned above. Consider this more a list of books pertaining to the history of technology, machining, metrology, some general science and good engineering texts.)

Dan Gelbart's Youtube Channel

Engineerguy's Youtube Channel

Nick Mueller's Youtube Channel

mrpete222/tubalcain's youtube channel

Tom Lipton (oxtools) Youtube Channel

Suburban Tool's Youtube Channel

NYCNC's Youtube Channel

Computer History Museum's Youtube Channel

History of Machine Tools, 1700-1910 by Steeds

Studies in the History of Machine Tools by Woodbury

A History of Machine Tools by Bradley

Tools for the Job: A History of Machine Tools to 1950 by The Science Museum

A History of Engineering Metrology by Hume

Tools and Machines by Barnard

The Testing of Machine Tools by Burley

Modern machine shop tools, their construction, operation and manipulation, including both hand and machine tools: a book of practical instruction by Humphrey & Dervoort

Machine-Shop Tools and Methods by Leonard

A Measure of All Things: The Story of Man and Measurement by Whitelaw

Handbook of Optical Metrology: Principles and Applications by Yoshizawa

Angle of Attack: Harrison Storms and the Race to the Moon by Gray

Machine Shop Training Course Vol 1 & 2 by Jones

A Century of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT, 1882-1982

Numerical Control: Making a New Technology by Reintjes

History of Strength of Materials by Timoshenko

Rust: The Longest War by Waldman

The Companion Reference Book on Dial and Test Indicators: Based on our popular website www.longislandindicator.com by Meyer

Optical Shop Testing by Malacara

Lost Moon: The Preilous Voyage of Apollo 13 by Lovell and Kruger

Kelly: More Than My Share of It All by Johnson & Smith

Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed by Rich & Janos

Unwritten Laws of Engineering by King

Advanced Machine Work by Smith

Accurate Tool Work by Goodrich

Optical Tooling, for Precise Manufacture and Alignment by Kissam

The Martian: A Novel by Weir

Roark's Formulas for Stress and Strain by Young Budynas & Sadegh

Materials Selection in Mechanical Design by Ashby

Slide Rule: The Autobiography of an Engineer by Shute

Cosmos by Sagan

Nuts, Bolts, Fasteners and Plumbing Handbook by Smith Carol Smith wrote a number of other great books such as Engineer to Win.

Tool & Cutter Sharpening by Hall

Handbook of Machine Tool Analysis by Marinescu, Ispas & Boboc

The Intel Trinity by Malone

Manufacturing Processes for Design Professionals by Thompson

A Handbook on Tool Room Grinding

Tolerance Design: A Handbook for Developing Optimal Specifications by Creveling

Inspection and Gaging by Kennedy

Precision Engineering by Evans

Procedures in Experimental Physics by Strong

Dick's Encyclopedia of Practical Receipts and Processes or How They Did it in the 1870's by Dick

Flextures: Elements of Elastic Mechanisms by Smith

Precision Engineering by Venkatesh & Izman

Metal Cutting Theory and Practice by Stephenson & Agapiou

American Lathe Builders, 1810-1910 by Cope As mentioned in the above post, Kennth Cope did a series of books on early machine tool builders. This is one of them.

Shop Theory by Henry Ford Trade Shop

Learning the lost Art of Hand Scraping: From Eight Classic Machine Shop Textbooks A small collection of articles combined in one small book. Lindsay Publications was a smallish company that would collect, reprint or combine public domain source material related to machining and sell them at reasonable prices. They retired a few years ago and sold what rights and materials they had to another company.

How Round Is Your Circle?: Where Engineering and Mathematics Meet by Bryant & Sangwin

Machining & CNC Technology by Fitzpatrick

CNC Programming Handbook by Smid

Machine Shop Practice Vol 1 & 2 by Moltrecht

The Elements of Computing Systems: Building a Modern Computer from First Principles A fantastic book with tons of free online material, labs, and courses built around it. This book could take a 6th grader interested in learning, and teach them the fundamentals from scratch to design a basic computer processor and programming a simple OS etc.

Bosch Automotive Handbook by Bosch

Trajectory Planning for Automatic Machines and Robots by Biagiotti & Melchiorri

The Finite Element Method: Its Basis and Fundamentals by Zhu, Zienkiewicz and Taylor

Practical Treatise on Milling and Milling Machines by Brown & Sharpe

Grinding Technology by Krar & Oswold

Principles of Precision Engineering by Nakazawa & Takeguchi

Foundations of Ultra-Precision Mechanism Design by Smith

I.C.S. Reference Library, Volume 50: Working Chilled Iron, Planer Work, Shaper and Slotter Work, Drilling and Boring, Milling-Machine Work, Gear Calculations, Gear Cutting

I. C. S. Reference Library, Volume 51: Grinding, Bench, Vise, and Floor Work, Erecting, Shop Hints, Toolmaking, Gauges and Gauge Making, Dies and Die Making, Jigs and Jig Making
and many more ICS books on various engineering, technical and non-technical topics.

American Machinists' Handbook and Dictionary of Shop Terms: A Reference Book of Machine-Shop and Drawing-Room Data, Methods and Definitions, Seventh Edition by Colvin & Stanley

Modern Metal Cutting: A Practical Handbook by Sandvik

Mechanical Behavior of Materials by Dowling

Engineering Design by Dieter and Schmidt

[Creative Design of Products and Systems by Saeed]()

English and American Tool Builders by Roe

Machine Design by Norton

Control Systems by Nise

That doesn't include some random books I've found when traveling and visiting used book stores. :)

This is definitely above your level, and it's from 1982 so it's a little outdated, but if you're really interested in astrophysics then it might be worth checking it out and trying to work through at least the first few sections. I think it's written so that you can follow it without too much math involvement.

Frank Shu - The Physical Universe: An Introduction to Astronomy

Otherwise, there are a lot of great popular-writing (i.e. not a textbook) books about physics/astrophysics. Here are a few:

Stephen Hawking - A Brief History of Time

Carl Sagan - Cosmos

Neil deGrasse Tyson - Death By Black Hole, and Other Cosmic Quandaries

My biggest advice, though, for taking physics in high school is to try to do as well as you possibly can in your math classes. Those are the most important for getting into physics. If you do well in math then physics should be pretty easy.

>I wonder, have you tried using the flower of life (or maybe the seed of life) geometric design to visualize your thoughts? It seems like a natural fit. Are there parallels in your theory to thoughts from the schools of sacred geometry?

Sacred geometry is a really interesting topic. I do touch on it a little in the ratiocinator video I am making. A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe was one of my favorite books when I was a kid.

>I appreciate the academic approach and wouldn’t want you to get lost in the artistry, but I do feel a few crisp visual aids might go a long way to convey your idea.

You are not the first, second, or third person to say this to me lol. I am intentionally not having visual aids, but I am going to make a video that discusses different ways of representing the model after I get the last two main videos done (ratiocinators and instantiation).

>About the model itself, are the tesselations of ratiocination of domains presented arguably the complete list, or are they more like examples of categorically shared attributes? Where does electromagnetism fall?

Ratiocinator tessellations (fabric, particle, chemical, amalgam, telluric, celestial, stellar, galactic, cosmic) are the shared scales / building blocks that take on different character depending on what ratiocinator(s) you use to make sense of them. If you look only through apparatus ratiocination, the universe looks like organicism, if you look only through the matter ratiocinator, the universe looks materialist.

About the completeness of the list of tessellations – it is maybe not a complete list, just covers the scales of the universe that our species is currently is aware of.

About electromagnetism, it would be an instantiation domain within material dynamic particle.

>If Life is a qualitative fractal, what does the imaginary quantity of the equation represent?

I suspect that architectonic models in general are attempts to draw a big circle around our total human capacity to know and do things, and are therefore schema ratiocinator instantiations, and the act of converting it into math is a recursive application of applying the form ratiocinator to measure it.

>As far as I know this effort has stalled, though not just for a lack of convenient way to organize the data. Please consider making your software an open source platform to ensure its availability to all as we move forward!

Yes, it has definitely stalled. In terms of models, Ken Wilber has one called Integral theory, but the problem is that it is religious, and you kinda have to adhere to its religious notions if you are going to use it. I very intentionally took a lexiconic approach for this reason. There needs to be a model anyone can use no matter what their beliefs are.

I hear a lot of arguments why software based on this should or should not be open source. I lean towards open source.

This is closer to ELI15 (high school geometry) but should help you out I hope.

a good lay discussion of the holographic principle is included in leonard susskind's The Black Hole War

but I'll reproduce some of the explanation here: basically there is a principle in some string theories (and believed necessary to quantum gravity) that states that a total description of a volume (3 dimensional space) can be thought of as encoded on the surface of the volume of that space. This was first noted around 1978, so it's not a new theory.

A volume can't be more complicated than the amount of information (entropy) that can be written to the surface of the volume.

If a volume becomes too complex for its description to fit on its surface area, then the volume will grow until it does (see black holes).

In the strongest form of this principle, this isn't just a mathematical constraint on volume complexity but an actual property of reality: everything apparently going on within a volume is the result of a projection from the surface surrounding it, and properties of 3D space (such as being 3D) or having gravity are emergent in the way that "holographic" projections are in optical illusions, and only occur at low energies and macroscopic scales.

This was inspired by black hole thermodynamics which is why there is a lay discussion in the book I mentioned above.

> A bit yeah, just moved in to my own apartment!

congratulations

> I understand the logic, but I still don't think these things have been demonstrated outside of philosophy essays.

Remember, demonstrability is only a qualifier for empirical evidence, evidence in general can be taken to be more vast and up for debate.

> I would disagree, but I don't even know what this means, unfortunately ;)

If you're interested http://www.amazon.com/Immortality-Defended-John-Leslie/dp/140516204X/

I don't think I can do his ideas any justice on a Reddit forum.

> I have heard of this, but I've never talked to anyone who actually held that view. I would like to talk with them about it for sure. I disagree, but on what part I disagree depends on what they say.

Well, if interested, I would suggest Max Tegmark's book Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality. He holds that our entire universe is literally made of mathematical numbers. He's also a physicist at MIT.

> Eh. So far as I am aware again, these are akin to borrowing theology's word-games in philosophy to demonstrate different things. I mean, sure, people can think of that if they want, but I don't think it shows anything particularly relevant about reality.

I would think that topics as our eternal destination, the fundamental metaphysical makeup of the world and the nature of reality help to bolster and reinforce scientific theory. I would doubt that many physicists would have stumbled onto space time without previous discussion of philosophy of time for example. Not to mention the ability of certain cosmological arguments to predict notions of a universes beginning. They might not be correct in the long run, but do provide certain hypothetical frames for future discoveries.

> True that, there are also plenty of atheists who are not rationalists at all, and believe all kinds of weird/unprovable things. I would be one of those strict materialists however ;)

Sorry to be pick the knits, but you mean empiricists, not rationalists in this case. Rationalist tends to focus on concepts through the work of a priori knowledge and then place it in an overall framework. The Mathematical and Platonic notions I mentioned are achieved through a rationalist frame work.

Empiricists are more about the posteriori verification of these ideas through induction and falsifiability. This does not preclude empiricists of being Platonists (Arif Ahmed is an example of such a case).

According to the philpapers, skeptical materialists make up only 5% of philosophers. So I would say tread lightly to claim these other 95% are being irrational.

>Well it is just that in my opinion is that string theory is the first thing that comes to mind for me. And it's not that I wonder where something comes from, but that it HAS to be made out of something.

Well I'd still argue that you haven't provided a coherent definition of what you mean by "something." I think you should try to think about this. Perhaps in a bath tub. With some marijuana. The fact that it is so difficult to define what you mean should be taken as a pretty big hint that the concept itself is more subtle or elusive than you realize.

> So that means the 'inside' of the smallest possible something could possibly be a 'field'? Then what would a 'field' be?

To the best of our knowledge, all there is in the universe are a set of mathematical relationships. A field is a mathematical object that has a value at every point in space. Our current best model of the universe posits that there are various fields that fill all of space. These fields have larger or smaller amplitudes at various places, and they interact with each other. What are the fields? They are mathematical objects.

Here is another book recommendation along the lines of "everything being math." The previous book recommendation is a bit more technical and emphasizes the "everything is information" side of things.

I'm working on my BS in Physics with my Astronomy minor done and here's my 2 cents. If you love the hobby enough, the math and physics shouldn't bother you. On the same point, after intro courses in both Physics and Astronomy, it gets very math-heavy. If you have the determination and love for the subject, it's very doable :)

My Astronomy textbook that I used is Foundations of Astrophysics.

Check it out and see if you can find a site that previews the book. Good luck!

There’s a lot to see out there. In the daytime its wildlife and scenery, but the night skies are clear and dark away from towns and you’ll see more stars and planets than you can at home... so bring along a good pair of binoculars.

These, from Celestron look promising, but you should probably do some research and shop around. A star finder is also a good idea.

Provided your dad didn't grow up in a big city he is old enough to have more or less taken for granted seeing the milky way on good nights when he was a kid. If you get far enough from city lights he's likely to see it again.

Book recommendation: The Fabric of Reality

Deals explicitly with how to think about a concept of time travel very similar to this. It’s framed in terms of Virtual Reality, but I think you could translate it for your own use easily. As a bonus, it’s a pretty fun tour of some really important ideas too.

I posted some video ideas earlier but I see that you also asked for any docs recommendations. A good place to read up on what some leading physicists have to say is The Nature of Time contest winning essays and prizes sponsored by the Foundational Questions Instiute (FQXi). There's a wealth of good info in those essays.

If you want to get into it even further, FQXi hosted a conference on Time (again with leading researchers in the field) and they posted the videos and slides from that conference here

If you want a popular-level book recommendation, mine would be From Eternity to Here

I love these lists that everyone has compiled here, I've seen some amazing books that I've read and have yet to read. But since no one's mentioned this one, I'd to add a book that I think is really significant to AskWomen and the state of our society today:

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. It's about how a black woman died of cervical cancer in the 50s, then doctors took her cancer cells to experiment on without telling her family, and they're basically the only human cells to be replicated in the lab without dying so they've been used in all of medicine, including to develop vaccines like polio -- and yet her descendants live without healthcare. It's an amazingly well written, interesting, and exciting book.

Other than that I recommend Mary Roach as an author, she is very fun to read. My favorites are Gulp: Adventures in the Alimentary Canal and Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void

It depends on exactly what he's interested in(propulsion, structures, controls, launch vehicles or satellites, etc) but check out the new SMAD(or old, for cheaper). It's a thorough book that covers the basics of practically everything and good enough to do initial designs. It could also be good to help find what he's interested in if he doesn't know yet.

Pricey new but not to pricey if bought used. I'd recommend getting it used or getting the older version. Paying the extra 100$ or more isn't worth it imo but as always that's up to you.

https://www.amazon.com/Space-Mission-Engineering-Technology-Library/dp/1881883159

Thank you! There is a lot of Enneagram info out on the web relating to personality types. This calendar doesn't follow such a system. Originally, I don't think it was used for personality types...

The idea from this came from a beauty of a book called "The Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe" by Michael S. Schneider (https://www.amazon.ca/Beginners-Guide-Constructing-Universe-Mathematical/dp/0060926716)

In there he mentions how it lines up with seasons of farming / harvest, and uses it to show how useful it can be to break down any whole event (in his example he uses a kitchen's process of serving food). I would highly recommend the book as it's very entertaining and changes your everyday perspective on numbers around you.

Other than that, Georges i Gurdjieff, brought the idea to the west. He's in my list of stuff to read soon ;)

Dry erase is meant to be put on the plastic / glass pane on the frame, NOT the actual print. Can you let me know if that wasn't clear? May need to add a note before some people blemish their poster haha

I just subscribed to this sub, and I'm so sad you didn't get any answers here. I came here after reading a few books that deal with the actual science behind the physics of time travel.

Here are a few to get you started.

How to Build a Time Machine

Time Travel and Warp Drives

I really recommend From Eternity to Here, it's just raw science on time, though there is an interesting chapter that really explains what it would take for travelling through time backwards. Overall, a very important read if you want to know what time actually is, compared to how we perceive it.

Also, I'll recommend the first book I started with, which I got into because I was writing a short story for a college class that involved time travel. It explains time travel and how to use it in fiction, so it's much less technical but gives a solid understanding as to how we would typically perceive the effects of them. it deals with getting paradoxes right etc. Here it is.

EDIT: Just realized all my links were to Canadian amazon, I'm sure they'll be on the US amazon if that's where you happen to live. Have fun!

Some general searches through the Phil Sci archives might turn up papers related to your interests here. In particular, there might be something under the general topics of cosmology, quantum gravity, or relativity theory.

Within that archive, some that stand out to me in relation to your question are: this paper on anthropic reasoning about many worlds, this paper summarizing unification arguments for string theory, this paper on the ethical implications of many worlds, this paper on general trends in philosophy of physics (one of which is the cosmological many worlds), this paper on whether or not string theory posits mereological simples that are extended, and this paper on what is involved in deriving GR from some string theories.

Some theoretical physicists who work on string theory or quantum gravity in general and who come to my mind as conscious of history & philosophy of science as well as metaphysics are: Lee Smolin, especially his books The Trouble with Physics and Three Roads to Quantum Gravity; Sean Carroll, perhaps even his lectures on time and his book The Big Picture; and Carlo Rovelli, especially his books Reality is Not What it Seems and Quantum Gravity. Again, I don't mention them to point to philosophical work on those topics but only to mention some physicists who work on those topics and who have a more philosophical bent.

I know Alexander Blum has looked into the history of quantum gravity but I don't know what he's written on the philosophy of quantum gravity or specifically on string theory. Tim Maudlin and Craig Callender do quite a lot of work on philosophy of space-time but I don't know that they have specifically discussed string theory. In general, you might find some interesting papers in the philpapers browser for the philosophy of string theory or of cosmology.

Also, Jeffrey Barrett has done quite a lot of work on quantum interpretations and Everettian many-worlds, which is not to be confused with the string-theoretic landscape of many worlds but you might find some of his work interesting.

Hope that helps!

I think that it's firstly important to make a couple of distinctions regarding what we are seeking to answer.

When Christians talk about God, there are many attributes given to God that cannot be proven, but are revealed through the Bible and the tradition of Judaism and Christianity. God's existence here is also considered revealed. Whether it is reasonable to believe in what is considered revealed knowledge, i.e., knowledge that is not gained from verifiable empirical proof, is a separate discussion.

But, Christian philosophers argue, since the early Middle Ages, that that the existence of a being from which all of reality springs can be known by the use of our reason.

So, the next question is then, is there a being who is the highest in the order of all beings in reality and who created everything. Framed differently: Where does reality come from? Or, how is it that reality came to be? This leaves out any discussion of what is God like, such as is he good or is he an evil tyrant. We are simply concerned with is there a being which accounts for all of reality.

Many materialists will simply say the existence of the universe -- whether this is simply it, or this universe is part of a multi-verse -- is a brute fact. Scientists such as Sean Carrol make this claim. There's an excellent debate between Frederick Copleston and Bertrand Russell, who are both philosophers, where at some point Russell declares that the beginning of the universe simply is, no further explanation is needed.

When we try to prove the existence of God, or what we could call God, by the use of our reason, we are doing so by logical proof. This type of logical proof is inductive, rather than deductive. Science relies on inductive reasoning. For instance, Newton’s laws of motion are a product of inductive reason. When we see that a billiard ball at rest moves after being hit by a moving billiard ball, we infer that this happens every time a moving ball strikes a still ball. We can then make predictions about how balls will move under certain conditions, thus making the game of pool possible, challenging, and fun. If we could not predict such action based on inductive reasoning, then the game would be absurd, and we would walk away frustrated and then disinterested. The same reasoning applies to the design and construction of bridges, buildings, cars, and all the technology we use as the material basis for our society. Without inductive reasoning, our reality would simply be absurd and chaotic.

The reliabilty of how the universe works can also be projected backwards in time and logically backwards (i.e., independent of time, e.g., the design of a ladder which requires a first rung; the first rung exists at the same time the last rung does, but is logically prior to the last rung when we consider how ladders work). So, through observation, we see that something cannot come from nothing. You came from your parents, and your parents came from their parents and so on. Some scientists claim that when sub-atomic particles pop into and out of existence, they are coming from nothing. But that has more to do with the definition of nothing and what causes this sudden appearance of particles.

It might be helpful to learn about the [5 logical proofs for the existence of God](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Ways_(Aquinas) as put forth by Thomas Aquinas, a philosopher/theologian from the 13th century. The proofs are more comprehensive than what is in the linked Wikipedia article, but it gives a good gist of what these proofs are.

When a philosopher then argues for the existence of God, he is only arguing for a very basic idea of God, that there is a being who accounts for the existence of the rest of reality. Again, this is a logical conclusion, not one that is found through empiricism alone.

I’m not a big fan of proving “pink unicorns” or “the Flying Spagetti Monster,” because they serve to mock more than promote sincere discourse.

The first step in sincerely discussing these issues is coming to a mutual understanding of your starting point, and then being open to listening to all evidence and logical argument.

Edit: Cleaned up spelling and grammar.

> The main reason for making a post and not taking the suggestions from the sticky post is because I am looking for something that has a camera or camera mount or something like that so we can photograph what we see. I have no idea how this is done so I don't know if I am overreaching but I would appreciate any recommendations.

Unfortunately astrophotography works nothing like daytime pic snapping does. It's a complicated and involved process, and often requires significant equipment and time investment. It's not something I would suggest for a complete novice to start with.

Instead, an AWB OneSky is well within your budget, leaving you also with enough for some extras, like a planetary eyepiece (the 6mm one, and the 9mm is also good if you want to upgrade the kit eyepiece later). Also, don't forget to get the missing manual!

And you'll have the perfect starting kit!

> [...] isn't the whole point of honest dialogue to learn from one another and test one's theories against those of others?

Nope. Theories are tested against evidence.

> If cause isn't a thing, then I need a better vocabulary and a better understanding of reality to describe why my car accelerates when I push the gas pedal [...]

This is a misunderstanding of scope. Cause is an emergent concept not found in the laws of physics similar to how baseball is an emergent concept not found in the laws of physics. "Baseball" can be a useful way to describe the macro world we inhabit just as "cause" can be a useful way to describe the macro world we inhabit. Does that mean the universe plays baseball?

> I honestly entreat you to help me learn what I am missing, and what I should read to correct my misunderstanding.

Please: https://www.amazon.com/Big-Picture-Origins-Meaning-Universe/dp/1101984252

You don't have to venture past page 4 to read that "[w]e find it natural to use a vocabulary of causes and reasons why things happen, but those ideas aren't part of how nature works at its deepest levels." The first section of the book elaborates.

> My supposition is that in claiming that something is unknowable we deny ourselves the ability to completely refute the unknown.

I didn't say it was unknowable. I said I didn't know.

> In other words, between atheism and agnosticism, atheism is a stronger claim, but is not defensible to the degree that agnosticism is.

This is venturing off point, but I disagree. If someone came to you and said, to use baseball again, that they know because of the existence of baseball that the universe plays baseball, would you find that to be a strong argument? Would you be agnostic on it, saying we could never know whether the universe plays baseball? Or would your response be similar to, "No, baseball is a complicated phenomenon inside the universe. What does it even mean for the universe to play baseball? That doesn't really make sense."

Your interlocutor would, of course, come back and point out that if baseball really isn't a thing in physics then he or she needs a better vocabulary and a better understanding of reality to describe nine men wearing pajamas on a field.

---

There is a distinct feeling from your writing that you can't understand why I'm closed off to the concept of "cause" to the universe. Isn't it at least possible that there was a cause? That there is a God? etc, etc? My response is you have no reason or evidence for it other than a sort of intuitive physics, which I should remind you is not necessarily a path to truth (see the famous single photon double slit experiment).

Let's read more Bertrand Russell (from "Why I am not a Christian" published in 1927):

> Perhaps the simplest and easiest to understand is the argument of the First Cause. (It is maintained that everything we see in this world has a cause, and as you go back in the chain of causes further and further you must come to a First Cause, and to that First Cause you give the name of God). That argument, I suppose, does not carry very much weight nowadays, because, in the first place, cause is not quite what it used to be. The philosophers and the men of science have got going on cause, and it has not anything like the vitality it used to have; but, apart from that, you can see that the argument that there must be a First Cause is one that cannot have any validity. I may say that when I was a young man and was debating these questions very seriously in my mind, I for a long time accepted the argument of the First Cause, until one day, at the age of eighteen, I read John Stuart Mill’s Autobiography, and I there found this sentence: ‘My father taught me that the question, “Who made me?” cannot be answered, since it immediately suggests the further question, “Who made God?” ’ That very simple sentence showed me, as I still think, the fallacy in the argument of the First Cause. If everything must have a cause, then God must have a cause. If there can be anything without a cause, it may just as well be the world as God, so that there cannot be any validity in that argument. It is exactly of the same nature as the Hindu’s view, that the world rested upon an elephant and the elephant rested upon a tortoise; and when they said, ‘How about the tortoise?’ the Indian said, ‘Suppose we change the subject.’ The argument is really no better than that. There is no reason why the world could not have come into being without a cause; nor, on the other hand, is there any reason why it should not have always existed. There is no reason to suppose that the world had a beginning at all. The idea that things must have a beginning is really due to the poverty of our imagination. Therefore, perhaps, I need not waste any more time upon the argument about the First Cause.

I'll give Richard Feynman the last word on a similar, but again tangential, topic:

> Now if the world of nature is made of atoms, and we too are made of atoms and obey physical laws, the most obvious interpretation of this evident distinction between past and future, and this irreversibly of all phenomena, would be that some laws, some of the motion laws of the atoms are going one way — that the atom laws are not such that they can go either way. There should be somewhere in the works some kind of a principle that uxles only make wuxles and never vice versa, and so the world is turning from uxley character to wuxley character all the time — and this one-way business of the interactions of things should be the thing that makes the whole phenomena of the world seem to go one way.

> And yet we haven't found it yet. That is, in all the laws of physics that we have found so far there doesn't seem to be any distinction of the past and the future.

His book, The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself is my favorite book that I've read this year. I highly recommend it. I'm about 15 years out of college, so was worried I wouldn't be able to keep up, but he does a fantastic job keeping concepts clear. I find it (while much longer) a more enjoyable read than A Brief History of Time.

Not exactly what you're looking for, but Packing For Mars is a pretty interesting read. Full of interesting facts about the science of space travel, while still being readable and funny.

I love this question, and "to where?" is definitely one of those things where people a lot smarter than me say "I have no idea."

I read a book about it once that covered this at one point, Warped Passages if you wanted to know the name.

Anyway, she presented a few options for what the universe might be "shaped" like, in terms of curvature. Since we're talking about multiple dimensions here, i'm going to use a more understandable 3d version first.

In a shape that's (uniformly) positively curved, you get a sphere. At every point on the sphere, no matter which way you look, the surface always bends down (or up, if you're on the inside of it.) More importantly, if you travel in a straight line along its surface, you'll end up exactly back where you started, travelling all the way around the sphere. Another interesting property of being on a sphere is that there are no parallel lines, any straight line will have to intersect at two points. with any other straight line you can draw along the surface of the sphere. In this picture, the red line isn't straight, that's a circle. The green and black lines are straight. So if we're on the surface of a higher-dimensional universe that is a hypersphere, then if we travel in a straight line for long enough, we'd end up back right where we started. The "no parallel lines" thing ends up being "no parallel planes" they'd intersect at two. . . Lines? At opposite ends of the 4-sphere? This is where I get lost.

If the curvature of the surface were 0, then we'd have a large, flat, plane. It wouldn't curve. This is the realm of geometry that we all know and love. We have exactly one line that passes through a point and is parallel to another line. It doesn't matter how big a shape you draw, the sum of the angles of their sides will always add up to the same number, and the ratio between the diameter and circumference of a circle is constant. Lines don't roll back to themselves, they just go off to infinity. It's also boring.

The third option is negative curvature. And you end up with. . . Hyperbolic surfaces. As you'd expect, this is pretty much the exact opposite of positive curvature. There are two lines that pass through a given point and are parallel to each other, and an infinity of them that don't remain a constant distance away, but still never intersect (these have the fancy status of being "ultraparallel"). For example all of these lines are straight if you were to draw them on a hyperbolic plane, and none of the black ones would intersect the blue one. Bring this up to 3d, and you have an infinite number of planes that (pass through a given point and are) parallel to a given plane. And way more that are ultraparallel.

So. . . Yeah, these are the simpler ways that the universe might be configured, and i'm already in way over my head. Most of this information was from that book, some googles and some guesses. Randall Munroe recently gave a nice overview of dimensions, too.

Leonard Susskind, as is mentioned, wrote a book that I strongly recommend The Black Hole Warin which he goes on to talk about A.) Hawking Radiation B.) Whether "Information" that goes into a black hole is permanently destroyed and for me, at lest, C.) he brought up the notion of the universe being a holographic image.

He sets out to write the book for the populous at large, and I feel he succeed in that. The Book was a VERY excellent read for the subject at hand. I would strongly recommend it to anyone who frequents this sub reddit.

I don't see how it's bunk? It explains the double slit experiment perfectly well and doesn't go deeper than that. Matter can be both a particle and a wave. It begins as a 'wave function' of probability. The particles location within the wave just isn't destined until it is measured/observed through an experiment. The measuring of such a wave forces it to collapse into a single location of matter. I will say that this is not an "Observation" in the traditional sense that it needs a living being to observe it (the giant eye in the video is misrepresented). It's all about the measuring of the wave through Mathematics.

It's still unknown why this occurs and is coined the 'Measurement problem'. The best explanation is that it supports the many world's theory of reality, in which all outcomes occur and we are but one of an infinite amount of outcomes.
I am no expert but it's insanely interesting stuff, I encourage people to look up the Quantum Wave Function on YouTube or grab a decent book outlining Quantum Mechanics.

Edit a few good options:
https://www.amazon.com/Big-Picture-Origins-Meaning-Universe/dp/1101984252

https://www.amazon.com/What-Real-Unfinished-Meaning-Quantum/dp/0465096050

https://youtu.be/OFwskHrtYQ4

https://youtu.be/p7bzE1E5PMY

This is an excellent book that covers most major scientific subjects. More than that, it's a great read.

If you're looking for more physics related stuff, this is a pretty easy read and even has a NOVA series that accompanies it.

Some of my favorites:

Brian Greene -- The Fabric of the Cosmos, The Elegant Universe, and The Hidden Reality. Greene is, to my mind, very similar to Hawking in his ability to take complex subjects and make them understandable for the physics layman.

Hawking -- I see you've read A Brief History of Time, but Hawking has a couple of other books that are great. The Grand Design, The Universe in a Nutshell, and A Briefer History of Time.

Same thing applies to Brian Cox. Here's his Amazon page.

Leonard Susskind -- The Black Hole Wars. Here's the basic idea behind this book. One of the basic tenets of physics is that "information" is never lost. Stephen Hawking delivered a presentation that apparently showed that when matter falls into a black hole, information is lost. This set the physics world on edge. Susskind (and his partner Gerard T'Hooft) set out to prove Hawking wrong. Spoilers: they do so. And in doing so, they apparently proved that what we see as 3 dimensions is probably similar to those 2-D stickers that project a hologram. It's called the Holographic Principle.

Lee Smolin -- The Trouble with Physics. If you read the aforementioned books and/or keep up with physics through pop science sources, you'll probably recognize that string theory is pretty dang popular. Smolin's book is a criticism of string theory. He's also got a book that's on my to-read list called Three Roads to Quantum Gravity.

Joao Magueijo -- Faster Than the Speed of Light. This is another physics book that cuts against the prevailing academic grain. Physics says that the speed of light is a universal speed limit. Nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. Magueijo's book is about his theory that the speed of light is, itself, variable, and it's been different speeds at different times in the universe's history. You may not end up agreeing with Magueijo, but the guy is smart, he's cocky, and he writes well.

This question gets asked all the time on this sub. I did a search for the term books and compiled this list from the dozens of previous answers:

How to Read the Solar System: A Guide to the Stars and Planets by Christ North and Paul Abel.


A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson.


A Universe from Nothing: Why There is Something Rather than Nothing by Lawrence Krauss.


Cosmos by Carl Sagan.

Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space by Carl Sagan.


Foundations of Astrophysics by Barbara Ryden and Bradley Peterson.


Final Countdown: NASA and the End of the Space Shuttle Program by Pat Duggins.


An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth: What Going to Space Taught Me About Ingenuity, Determination, and Being Prepared for Anything by Chris Hadfield.


You Are Here: Around the World in 92 Minutes: Photographs from the International Space Station by Chris Hadfield.


Space Shuttle: The History of Developing the Space Transportation System by Dennis Jenkins.


Wings in Orbit: Scientific and Engineering Legacies of the Space Shuttle, 1971-2010 by Chapline, Hale, Lane, and Lula.


No Downlink: A Dramatic Narrative About the Challenger Accident and Our Time by Claus Jensen.


Voices from the Moon: Apollo Astronauts Describe Their Lunar Experiences by Andrew Chaikin.


A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts by Andrew Chaikin.


Breaking the Chains of Gravity: The Story of Spaceflight before NASA by Amy Teitel.


Moon Lander: How We Developed the Apollo Lunar Module by Thomas Kelly.


The Scientific Exploration of Venus by Fredric Taylor.


The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe.


Into the Black: The Extraordinary Untold Story of the First Flight of the Space Shuttle Columbia and the Astronauts Who Flew Her by Rowland White and Richard Truly.


An Introduction to Modern Astrophysics by Bradley Carroll and Dale Ostlie.


Rockets, Missiles, and Men in Space by Willy Ley.


Ignition!: An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants by John Clark.


A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking.


Russia in Space by Anatoly Zak.


Rain Of Iron And Ice: The Very Real Threat Of Comet And Asteroid Bombardment by John Lewis.


Mining the Sky: Untold Riches From The Asteroids, Comets, And Planets by John Lewis.


Asteroid Mining: Wealth for the New Space Economy by John Lewis.


Coming of Age in the Milky Way by Timothy Ferris.


The Whole Shebang: A State of the Universe Report by Timothy Ferris.


Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandries by Neil deGrasse Tyson.


Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution by Neil deGrasse Tyson.


Rocket Men: The Epic Story of the First Men on the Moon by Craig Nelson.


The Martian by Andy Weir.


Packing for Mars:The Curious Science of Life in the Void by Mary Roach.


The Overview Effect: Space Exploration and Human Evolution by Frank White.


Gravitation by Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler.


The Science of Interstellar by Kip Thorne.


Entering Space: An Astronaut’s Oddyssey by Joseph Allen.


International Reference Guide to Space Launch Systems by Hopkins, Hopkins, and Isakowitz.


The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality by Brian Greene.


How the Universe Got Its Spots: Diary of a Finite Time in a Finite Space by Janna Levin.


This New Ocean: The Story of the First Space Age by William Burrows.


The Last Man on the Moon by Eugene Cernan.


Failure is Not an Option: Mission Control from Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond by Gene Kranz.


Apollo 13 by Jim Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger.


The end

PS - /u/DDE93 this list has all the links.

The Black Hole War My Battle with Stephen Hawking to Make the World Safe for Quantum Mechanics by Leonard Susskin is another great one for the layperson. Susskin is one of the few writers I've found who can explain the strangeness of quantum physics in somewhat clear terms to a non-physicist.

Hope this helps. I've been trying to spread around knowledge of some great books that are not included in the FAQ reading list but that helped me build a solid understanding and appreciation for science.

The builders 3/4/5 (pythagorean theorem).

Take anything you are trying to build that needs a 90 degree angle. Measure one leg of the 90 in a multiple of 3 (whatever you want, inches, feet, etc), the second leg as a multiple of 4. Now measure the distance between the end of both legs, it should be a multiple of 5.

Easiest way to square up a foundation wall or sill plate of a house you are framing, a cabinet you are building, etc. If you already have 4 sides, measure the two diagonals (X) and you should have an identical measurement if they are square. If one is longer than the other, rack the box until they are equal, then you have a 4 90 degree angles.

Probably less than 5 minutes to learn.

Ohh and if you really want to get into some fun, get a compass, straight edge and sharp pencil. Learn the basic geometric progression of sacred geometry from 1-10, then start seeing the geometric structure in all living things.

Best 12 bucks you will ever spend at the following link (YMMV)

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060926716/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1?pf_rd_p=486539851&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=B000CSCZ58&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0V123YNSK1R329RFF10G

A lot of the better-researched/possible in the next 5 years stuff will have "speculative fiction" tacked on as a label instead of sci-fi. Just an observation.

In terms of very readable science nonfiction, you might try The Poisoner's Handbook, which is told in anecdotes about murder cases and the development of modern forensics in New York or Mary Roach's humorous essay collections in Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void, and others. The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan was also quite readable and well-researched (about agrobusiness), but his other books get overly preachy, I think.

The Best Science and Nature anthologies are a good starting point when you're looking for new authors you click with too.

Our mathematical universe by Max Tegmark is I think right up your alley.

http://www.amazon.com/Our-Mathematical-Universe-Ultimate-Reality/dp/0307599809

His position, which amounts to a highly stylized "from a certain point of view" style argument, is quite interesting and goes very in depth. He does a lot to establish some rules of sanity and then goes on to explain the role things take.

I don't want to spoiler alert the whole book, but the core tenant of his proposal is that you ARE mathematics. It's kind a of mind-bending concept when you first hear it, but by the end of the book it leaves you sort of "Okay then so what? What does that matter?"

That, as per usual, is an exercise left up to the reader. Though I would very highly recommend reading it, as it does give you a very different and honestly refreshing perspective on the role mathematics takes in our lives.

I don't know he was able to convince me I'm a mathematical quantity; but I don't not believe his interpretation either.

These are some of my favourites:

1. The Psychedelic Renaissance (talks about different psychoactive drugs) http://www.amazon.com/The-Psychedelic-Renaissance-Reassessing-Psychiatry/dp/1908995009
   
2. Be Here Now (hippie, buddhist/hinduism peace and love vibes with wonderful illustrations) http://www.amazon.com/Be-Here-Now-Ram-Dass/dp/0517543052/ref=sr_1_1_ha?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1411704494&sr=1-1&keywords=be+here+now
   
3. Why Does The World Exist? (more scientific and metaphysical) http://www.amazon.com/Why-Does-World-Exist-Existential/dp/0871403595/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1411704588&sr=1-1&keywords=why+does+the+world+exist
   
   That's apart from Timothy Leary's "The Psychedelic Experience" and Huxley's "Doors of Perception" thought, those are must-reads.

I'd really recommend Fabric of the Cosmos by Brian Greene. The entire purpose of the book is to explain relativity and quantum physics to laymen. Has some really good explanations and great "scenarios" that can help describe the physics.

This'll hardly explain it like you're five, but Jim Holt's book "Why Does the World Exist: An Existential Detective Story is fantastic further reading that essentially investigates this existential question from every angle. Historical theories, different philosophical theories/ideas, scientific study and theory (basic physics through to advanced quantum stuff)...

I really recommend it.

>'You're saying there is some particular plane in space about which the entire universe is mirrored'.
Precisely!of all the replies we got, this.You identified the crux of Prof Okolo's argument -if not , why not ?If you are aware of any asymmetry which coud cause this, could you point it out to us ,(online resources and books or monoraph welcome too)

Not only that: why isn't the universe symmetrical with respect to every plane? Why is it not completely uniform and homogeneous throughout all space and indeed time, so that if you mirror across any plane (or for that matter uf you rotate about any axis, or choose a reference frame with any velocity, etc.) it still looks the same? Surely this would be the maximum possible symmetry.

The standard answer to both of our questions is that in the very early universe this was indeed true, but the symmetry was destroyed by the randomness of quantum mechanics. For instance a proton and antiproton might pop into existence in one place, but not in another place under identical conditions. Of course these random events would in general be independent; there need not be any correlation between events occurring on one side of some particular plane and events occurring on the other side.

The resulting deviations from perfect symmetry would be tiny at first but gradually became larger. If one area of space were very slightly denser than its surroundings, its gravity would pull in more matter, further increasing the density. The expansion of space itself would also magnify these tiny fluctuations to a much larger scale, forming galaxies and superclusters and all the other interesting structure we see in the universe.

The primary tool for studying this is what's known as the Cosmic Microwave Background. This is a pattern of radiation that was emitted in the very early universe, but is still "visible" today (in the same way that we still receive light from ancient stars that are now dead.) From this we see that the early universe does indeed appear to have been extremely homogeneous. But when examined very closely it exhibits the sort of very slight fluctuations and patterns you might expect from the earlier discussion, and these patterns are still studied closely for information about this era of the universe.

Here's a review article on the state of cosmology and CMB research up to 2001. Although the majority is quite technical, note the introduction, which outlines our current model of cosmology:

>that he universe is spatially flat, consists mainly of dark matter and dark energy, with the small amount of ordinary matter necessary to explain the light element abundances, and all the rich structure in it formed through gravitational instability from quantum mechanical fluctuations when the Universe was a fraction of a second old.

If one has some physics background at the undergraduate level, Ryden's Introduction to Cosmology is a good starting point.

Last, I should recognize that of course there is still some debate about whether quantum mechanics is truly random at all. If for instance you adhere to the "many-worlds" interpretation of QM, you would say that any apparent randomness is merely a result of our own limited perspective. In that case, it would probably follow that the "multiverse" in its entirety is completely symmetrical. But of course proponents of the quantum many-worlds interpretation already believe in multiple parallel Earths and so forth.

>Ouch!Ouch! That hurts,especially as Prof Okolo is a relation. However this is no reason to exclude him from harsh but valid criticism,: so, why do you think the paper is low-grade ,if so?(note,if you read the comment attached to our question, Prof Okolo mentions in a supplement he is aware of symmetry-breaking in certain physical interactions ,but this is no reason to suppose it wuld affect the paper)

Apologies for any personal insult. Of course to come to places like this looking for constructive criticism (or enlist friends and relations to do so) is probably not the behavior of a crackpot.

I also hate to come to a philosophical forum and lambast philosophers of physics for not being physicists; there's too much of that going around already! But that being said, if the thrust of Prof. Okolo's argument is to assert the existence (or lack) of any particular type of symmetry as a theoretical prediction, this seems very much a question for physicists, and it's unlikely one will be able to answer it without a strong familiarity with the current state and methods of cosmological research.

The book list just keeps growing in so many different directions that it's hard to identify which I want to tackle next (I also have a tendency to take meticulous notes while I read and that slows the process down even further!). Some of the topics I intend to read about once I'm done with the books mentioned:

• God: A Human History
  
• Why We Believe in God(s): A Concise Guide to the Science of Faith
  
• The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World
  
• The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck
  
• Occult America
  
• When Prophecy Fails
  
• Astrophysics for People in a Hurry
  
• Cosmos
  
• Norse Mythology
  
• Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water
  
• Guns, Germs, and Steel
  
• Misquoting Jesus
  
• On Bullshit
  
• The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe
  
• Why People Believe Weird Things
  
  Plus a bunch of books by Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Carl Sagan, and others. There are way too many. And all the fiction books I want to read too! It's not that I didn't read books before, but my faith transition has sparked an intense desire to study and learn far greater than I ever experienced before.

(Simplification and semi-mediocre understanding of a high-school student)
Essentially, it's a particle that, through fundamental interactions with other particles such as leptons and quarks and the so called "Higgs Field" cause inertia (mass) to arise. I would consult Wikipedia if I were you and would check out some readings.

Warped Passages by Lisa Randall
A Brief History of Time+The Universe in a Nutshell - Stephen Hawking
The Elegant Universe - Brian Greene

Personally, I'd recommend the first because, if a little bit dry, Randall explains the Higgs theory better. (The second book was what got me obsessed in science two or three years ago.) Happy Trails!

wow. so well said! now I can get back to reading this book and it will make more sense to me https://www.amazon.com/Our-Mathematical-Universe-Ultimate-Reality/dp/0307599809 (the best book I ever read in explaining Guth's inflation theory and cosmology in general to lay folks like myself...oh wait, is that what you are talking about? is there a distinction between "expansion" and "inflation theory"? my understanding of the latter is what OP is discussing)

You should take some time to see a movie. "Exit" Through the Gift Shop is one of my favorites, and it might even help you feel a little less crabby. Some beautiful street art in there.

Wishlist

>If you know as much about science as I hope, then explain how everything came out so perfect out of (insert atheist way of creation)!

I will refer you to 3 books for that one, but then I will explain why that is not a valid argument and then explain why god does not answer that question either.

First the books: the first two will explain the big bang and inflationary cosmology (this is actually what took over or heavily modified the big bang theory from its original form) they are both by Briane Greene and I highly recommend them if you are interested in physics at all (they are not about god) the fabric of the cosmos and The hidden reality. There are also NOVA specials you can watch from the Fabric of the cosmos and his earlier book the elegant universe though I do not remember if they cover the big bang or inflation. The third book is specifically about the argument you just put forward. It is The fallacy of fine tuning:why the universe is not designed for us by Victor Stenger.

The reason that the argument you made is fallacious involves logical fallacies. Now, I don't want to seem like I'm talking down to you at all (I'm not) but I'm not sure how familiar you are with the intricacies of logic. Basically every argument has a premise, logical steps, and a conclusion. The argument you made (that the universe is perfect) has three flaws.

1: False premise - The universe is not actually perfect, far from it in fact. The reason why we are accustomed to the universe as it is is due to evolution. We evolved to fit the universe, not the other way around. If you mean something specific like how could the constants have got to the exact values we have please read the hidden reality, it answers that question by explaining multiple instances of how the universe can be fractured into slightly variable universes. The god delusion also answers this question but from my experience most theists are not willing to read it.

2: False premise - The burden of proof is not on me to prove or explain anything. I don't know is a completely acceptable answer if I had no evidence to put forward (We do actually have evidence, see the three books). Saying that I don't know how the universe came about does not immediately cede the argument to god. God has to answer to the same standards of logic and evidence that I would require of my own pet hypothesis. Burden of proof was explain in analogy by [Russell](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot "This is why our logo is riding in a teapot")

3: Logical fallacy - Argument from ignorance. I already explained this one a little but basically this is the part that says you cannot use what we both do not know as evidence. If we come to a cave, and you ask what is in the cave and I say that I don't know but I bet it's a dragon then I would be using our shared ignorance to try and put forward the idea of a dragon as the inhabitant of the cave (sorry this analogy is bad, I have a flu right now so I'm kind of worn down)

Now, the reason that god fails the logic test (before he fails the evidence test, which he also does) is that if you say that god created the universe then you have put a terminator on the infinite regression that is causality (there are some hypothetical reasons that causality could be violated before the universe but I am skeptical of many of them and it would take me too far off track to get into them). The problem here is why do you give god a break from needing a cause? If we both agreed that there must be a first cause, why the hell should we give it sentience, and intelligence, and supernatural powers? If we also put forward a first cause that did not have those things then we would have an explanation that used fewer assumptions (many fewer assumptions). One of the best logical tools is occam's razor, which says that when we have multiple competing hypothesis we remove the ones with the most assumptions. Now it is only a logical tool and does not guarantee we will be correct but it is still a good probability chooser (remember how I said science is about probabilities).

So anyways, if you read this far I really hope that your takeaway is at least to read the three books i recommended (they are complicated but very interesting). I would also ask that you read the FAQ and probably The God Delusion (as it covers more of the faux science arguments for god than God is Not Great).

To build on doc_daneeka's answer, I'll try to recollect an explanation I read about 4D objects in 3D space.

An object existing in n dimensions may be represented in n-1 dimensions. This representation may be called a shadow.

So, a 2D representation of an object existing in 3 dimensions is called a shadow (and is a shadow as we know it). Looking at a 2D representation alone, one might be able to reconstruct what the original object looks like in 3D.

Say, you see the shadow of a clear glass vase. If you know where the light source is placed, you might be able to ascertain what the vase looks like based solely on its shadow. Spin the vase, and the shadow will show some movement as well.

What we're looking at is a 3D representation of an object that exists in 4 dimensions. For a moving object in 3 dimensions, its shadow would also show movement albeit only in two axis. Similarly, objects in 4 dimensions would show movement along three axis.

From what I gather, we haven't yet developed a sophisticated way to think or even explain (to the layman at least) what an object might look like in 4D. Most of our brains aren't wired to think that way. Kinda like the characters in Flatland - really nice read, BTW.

You know...I may have come across this explanation while attempting (and failing miserably) to read and understand Lisa Randall's Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe's Hidden Dimensions.

An 8" Dobsonian reflector telescope, such as the Orion XT8i with Intelliscope to help you find your way around the sky. $640.

The book NightWatch, $20.

The Backyard Astronomer's Guide, $30.

A planisphere. Get one appropriate for your latitude. $10.

A comfortable camping stool for sitting at the eyepiece, or your back will quickly complain. ~$30.

SkySafari for your iPhone/iPad, $3.

A pair of good binoculars, 8x50 or 10x50, $120.

A nice wide-field (62-degree) eyepiece, like the Explore Scientific 24mm. $140.

That's about $1000.

One more thing to add: a dark sky. Priceless.

In the book The Black Hole War, Stephen Hawking made a deliberately provocative comment in a small physics symposium that, if Professor Hawking was right, would shake the foundations of quantum physics to the ground. Leonard Susskind disagreed with Hawking's position, but was unable to demonstrate it mathematically.

It would take him ten years to do so, involving him with many other physicists and leading to several startling discoveries about the nature of black holes, time and space, leading to the holographic principle. Ten years of furious, brilliant research by multiple luminaries in the field, all touched off by a single, insightful question by Professor Hawking.

Susskind's book is quite accessible and well worth a read. Readers will get to see how physics is done, at least at the social and professional level. Plus, for a while and through Susskind, one gets to hang around a quiet social gathering of some of the most brilliant physicists the world has seen.

most of the costs come from developing the spacecraft and its life support systems, and then qualifying it to a level the operator feels safe with. 20 billion seems like a good number to wildy guess at.

if you want equations, they are in here https://www.amazon.com/Space-Mission-Engineering-Technology-Library/dp/1881883159

Ahh I see. Well since you've got a science degree already, you're better prepared to start learning than most people out there.

If it's any help, I strongly recommend Barbara Ryden's Introduction to Cosmology as a nice upper-level undergraduate intro to cosmology. As long as you have a decent grasp of calculus, and remember some fundamental electricity and magnetism, it should be readable.

Amazon Listing here

It's nice because it assumes no knowledge of GR (she presents some equations/results from GR, but you just basically have to treat them like law, basically the same way they introduce F=ma in physics 101). The book really tries to work off logical arguments and physical reasoning than it does lots and lots of math.

No problem! Only other thing I'd recommend is this book -

Turn Left at Orion: Hundreds of Night Sky Objects to See in a Home Telescope - and How to Find Them https://www.amazon.com/dp/1108457568/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_S5w4DbPS7Q07S




To help them find things in the sky.




If you wind up getting all this, you'll have some extremely happy parents and you will probably find yourself making some trips out to enjoy it with them 🙂

> People seem to tell me to just stop asking these questions because it's impossible to ever know...

It's definitely not that you should stop asking the questions, it's that the only people who are genuinely qualified to answer them are cosmologists. So while it's fun to speculate, the only way to make real progress on these questions ourselves would be to get a PhD in physics. Which I'm pretty sure I'm not going to do at this point in my life. :-)

It's interesting to read what people who actually do have a PhD in physics have to say about these questions, though. That's why I linked you to a few articles/debates in my other reply. And there are plenty of books out there that look at the origins of the universe and how it could have arisen (for example The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself by Sean Carroll or A Universe From Nothing by Lawrence Krauss).

One thing to keep in mind is that quantum physics is not just counterintuitive but wildly counterintuitive. So even though we may have beliefs like "everything needs a cause", and even though that principle is reasonable in everyday life, it doesn't necessarily apply in quantum physics, where the very notion of causality is debatable. That's why non-physicists (definitely including philosophers and theologians) are just not qualified to answer these questions -- because our intuition leads us astray, and the rules that work for us within the universe fall apart when we're looking at the origin of the universe.

>What do you think created our universe? The big bang? where did that stuff come from (open to any answer, just please no extremist anger driven posts please)

Origins: Neil deGrasse Tyson and Donald Goldsmith

Read this book if you want a clear, in-depth answer about the Big Bang and the expansion of our universe right after it. (It doesn't necessarily answer the question: "How did the Big Bang get started?" It does offer a lot more detail than a theist would, though.)

>(obviously not god since this is the atheist reddit but if someone who believes in a god of some sort is trolling here, where did your god come from? if he created everything, what created him?)

Infinite Regression

I would also like to mention "Quantum Mechanics: The Theoretical Minimum" by Leonard Susskind.

Lectures are available online on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL701CD168D02FF56F

Lectures go nicely with the book of same name.
Book: https://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Mechanics-Theoretical-Leonard-Susskind/dp/0465062903

I found this book and lecture series a nice and gentle entry into the field. Sort of like preparation for Mike and Ike.

• You can print out free skymaps at Skymaps.com. They create a new one every month, have different versions for different viewing latitudes, and show where the planets are as well.
  
  
• You can also buy a $12 planisphere at Amazon.com which you can adjust to show the stars, nebulae, clusters, etc. at any given date and time. However, planets and the moon are not shown on these (since they vary so much over time). But they do show "the ecliptic" which is the line that the planets are always very close to. They're definitely worth the 12 bucks.
  
  
  
  

Max Tegmark likes to engage in these slightly fringy topics. As I understand he does standard work in physics and occasionally go into areas like this. It's highly speculative, but, as far as I can tell, his reasoning is generally pretty solid.

In terms of additional evidence for (or against) such a universe, I think your best bet is to look at the anthropic principle. Sean Carroll in his book From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time discusses an alternative theory that Boltzmann had and I think his objections might apply here. In the most extreme sense of Tegmark's argument every cubic meter of space is in a random state and by simple chance of an infinite universe one of those cubic meters are going to contain "you". This is similar to Boltzmann's view where our universe was a low entropy fluctuation of an infinite universe in thermal equilibrium (of course, now we know of the big bang and our view of the history of the universe is very different). The counterargument to such a universe is that of so-called Boltzmann brains.

If, indeed, the universe contains an infinite number of cubic meters and an infinite number of "you"s, the question you might ask yourself is what universe you should see around you? The vast majority of "you"s would see nothing. There is so much structure around you, other humans, planets, stars, galaxies, etc that the idea that you're a result a random state in the universe is extremely problematic.

I don't know that there is a "complete list" like that, it's not well defined, and different people and organizations divide things up in different ways. It might be more helpful to try and find out what sort of things are being done in the space industry that you'd like to get involved in, and then ask specifically about that.

However, if you are looking for some resources on what space engineers do, there's always Space Mission Engineering (formerly called SMAD) which provides a good overview of a complete mission.

Thanks. The Timothy Ferris book sounds fascinating -- exactly the kind of stuff I love reading about. I can't believe I had never heard of him or this book until now.

Bachelors of Science in Aerospace Engineering (ABET search, input "Aerospace Engineering" for program name). Also consider joining AIAA, especially if you are in school or work in the industry. These both assume you are in the USA.

You can also follow the /r/aerospace and /r/engineering reddits.

As for books, The Martian was a much better book than movie. Jeb can learn a thing or two from Watney. If you really want to learn orbital mechanics, the /r/aerospace folks highly recommend SMAD.

EDIT: Saw someone mention watching live launches. Good idea: NASA TV and SpaceFlightNow.

For anyone interested, please read The Fabric of Reality, by David Deutsch it really delves into the Many World's theory and is an awesome read.

Great movie, and even greater book (more detailed, esp at the ending). +1 would recommend.

Check out this list. It includes most if not all books mentioned here.

From more to less advanced, generally:

• Geometry by Gray, Esplen, and Brannan
  
  
• The Infinite in the Finite
  
  
• A Geometrical Picture Book
  
  
• 99 Points of Intersection: Examples-Pictures-Proofs
  
  
• Lines and Curves: A Practical Geometry Handbook
  
  
• The Heart of Mathematics
  
  
• The Symmetries of Things
  
  
• A Mathematical Gift, 1: The Interplay Between Topology, Functions, Geometry, and Algebra (Mathematical World) (v. 1)
  
  A Mathematical Gift, II
  
  A Mathematical Gift, III: The Interplay Between Topology, Functions, Geometry, and Algebra (Mathematical World) (v. 3)
  
  Note the first three volumes are cheaper as a set.
  
  Intuitive Topology (Mathematical World, Vol 4)
  
  Groups and Symmetry: A Guide to Discovering Mathematics (Mathematical World, Vol. 5)
  
  Knots and Surfaces: A Guide to Discovering Mathematics (Mathematical World, Vol. 6)
  
  
• A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe
  
  and 5 activity books in the same style
  
  
• Going beyond books, but visual, manipulative, and tactile, the Zome Tools

I found out Galileo's mentor had a metal nose while reading Coming of age in the Milky Way by Timothy Ferris. Great book, and essentially tells the stories of all the lives that have contributed to what we know about our universe today. Not to mention Timothy Ferris is an amazing writer.

If this interests you, you might enjoy warped passages by Lisa Randall. It’s a few years old now, so I’d bet the science has evolved, but she does a great job of explaining these kinds of concepts in lay-terms.

There are several detection methods when it comes to detecting extra-solar planets. These methods include:

Pulsar timings: Periodic variations in the pulse arrival time due to Earth-mass or smaller planets orbiting a pulsar. Angular momentum comes into play here.

Doppler Spectroscopy: A doppler shift, (In the case of light, objects moving towards you are blueshifted, and away from you are redshifted) in the wavelength of light recieved from a planet due to it moving towards or away from us.

Astrometric variations: A precise measurement of stellar position to find the wobble due to a planet orbiting a star. Though we say that planets orbit stars, they really orbit centers of mass, and the star orbits this same center of mass. For stars with very large masses compared to their orbiting planets this center of mass will fall within the radius of the star.

Transit photometry: Seeing a planet passing in front of its star causing the star to dimm slightly and periodically. This requires the planet to orbit in our line of sight.

Microlensing: Much like the gravitational lensing we see from having galaxies between us and a more distant target, planets also cause lensing by moving in front of the star, this effect is extremely small as you might imagine, thus the name.

If I understand your question correctly it would be like looking from above the plane in which the planets orbit, so the best method for detecting planets would be astrometric variations. We can see the star orbiting a common center of mass with the planet, which we wouldn't see if the star did not have companions orbiting it.

First time trying to answer a question here, hopefully I didn't mess it up!
These methods were taking from my astrophysics notes, these notes are without their own sources unfortunately (I'm an astrophysics student).

Edit: A relavent source (click the different methods to get a swanky gif of it in action!) 5 Ways to Find a Planet.

The textbook we use in astrophysics is Foundations of Astrophysics (Ryden & Peterson).

Also you might appreciate this book; I found it interesting:
https://www.amazon.com/Why-Does-World-Exist-Existential/dp/0871403595

"Why is there something instead of nothing" is the fundamental question of reality. I enjoyed this post, thanks.

Coming of Age in the Milky Way by Timothy Ferris

Risk by Dan Gardner

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon (in 6 volumes)

Be sure you have 2 or 3 years freed up before you start that last one ... :)

If you're really interested in the subject, one of the best books on black holes I've ever read it, appropriately titled, The Black Hole War(My Battle with Stephen Hawking to Make the World Safe for Quantum Mechanics) by Leonard Susskind.

I just started "A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe: Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art, and Science." Not far into it, but pretty excited to dig in.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0060926716/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_SFv9yb1BA6675

Space Mission Engineering/SMAD is a pretty good general overview of space mission engineering and spacecraft design, if that's what you're looking for. That's the senior design textbook for my program, but it's written by a number of engineers at NASA and in the industry. Braeunig also has some good information on some basics of the science (and it's free), but it's mostly undergrad-level orbital mechanics and rocket propulsion.

Is there anything more specific (other than heat transfer) that you're looking for?

If you're looking to build a mission from scratch, SMAD (Space Mission Analysis and Design) is a textbook / reference book that'd probably help quite a bit. It'd give you a good overview of most of what you need to know. It can also help you answer questions about ADCS systems before you know you have them.

>...is it acceptable to consider a four dimensional object as being composed of an infinite number of three dimensional 'slices'?

This is perfectly acceptable and absolutely correct. The analogy holds for all dimensions. A line is composed of an infinite number of points. A plane is an infinite number of lines.

>If it's only a dimension, then we are just objects existing in that dimension and have a predetermined 'volume' and our existence at any instant in time is one of an infinite number of values in a Riemann sum.

Yea, something like that. Some physicist view it that way.

Maybe this can help you. The previous 4 pages of the chapter aren't available, and most of the images are blocked, so I'm not sure, this may not help, but start reading here.

I believe you made more sense than you think.

Read Carl Sagan's Cosmos. If you're truly interested in physics, it'll motivate you to learn as much as you physically can.

It's also a great book :)

The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality by Brian Greene

I've heard pretty good things about Quantum Mechanics: The Theoretical Minimum by Leonard Susskind. I imagine it also has the added advantage of matching the Standford course he did that can be found on YouTube

I'm all over the place, I have a few books in progress.


Jitterbug Perfume - Tom Robbins

Packing for Mars - Mary Roach

Freakonomics - Levitt & Dubner

Outliers: The Story of Success - Malcolm Gladwell

This really depends on what you want to learn. I'll throw out some of my favorites.


Coming of Age In The Milky Way

Chasing Venus: The Race to Measure The Heavens

Of course there's Carl Sagan's Cosmos which is a bit outdated, but still a fantastic read. I'd personally recommend any of Sagans books. Demon Haunted World (about science and skepticism), Pale Blue Dot (spiritual sequel to Cosmos)

Death by Black Hole

Atom: A Single Oxygen Atom's Odyssey from the Big Bang to Life on Earth... and Beyond

There's a cool popular science book that mentions that even in 90s-00s he was quite unwilling to accept the wrongness of one of his theories when it was proven to be false by a group of physicists.

There's actually a large amount of different models you can come up with using the Friedmann equation by playing with the density of matter, radiation, and the cosmological constant. If you're interested in learning about cosmology, check out the book by Barbara Ryden. It's a very gentle introductory text that's accessible to anyone who knows a bit of calculus.

That's simply a mathematical description of it. We're saying that antimatter moving forwards in time is mathematically identical to matter moving backwards. Matter can be thought of as antimatter moving backwards in time, too.

The 2nd law of thermodynamics (entropy increases) comes from the definition of entropy: high entropy means that there are lots of ways to arrange things microscopically so that they're indistinguishable at our level. That means necessarily that there are more high entropy states than low entropy states, so by pure probability evolving a system in time (in either direction) leads to a higher entropy system. It's got nothing to do with individual particles moving forwards or backwards in time.

Most of what you consider to be consequences of time moving forwards are consequences of entropy increasing: a being moving "backwards" in time isn't going to remember the future, because remembering is about being able to work backwards from your current high-entropy state to a low-entropy past. Imagine you have a photograph: if entropy was lower in the past, it probably resulted from the lower entropy situation of a camera photographing the subject. If it wasn't lower, then it might just be a random chance collection of atoms that used to be a high-entropy gas.

So to answer your question: antimatter is going to obey the same laws here as everything else. Entropy increases because we don't know anything about the future, and know that in the past it was lower. The same applies to antimatter.

Sorry for the wall of text - but if you're interested you should read this book, which does a remarkable job of explaining entropy.

Not outside of this book, but it's a great read. Packing for Mars

I mostly read non-fiction, and am interested in politics, morality and how smart people can come to construct completely different versions of reality... soooo if any of that kind of stuff is your bag, I can recommend:

​

One Nation, Two Realities

The Myth of the Rational Voter

Stop Being Reasonable

Mistakes were made by not by me

The Big Picture

​

The first two are are semi-academic texts, so there is some experiments/data in there that you can skip over. The second two are meant for popular consumption about how people come to form and change opinions, and the big picture is a really approachable summary about everything from epistemology, quantum physics and consciousness. It's broken into lots of very short chapters so great to read before and after going to sleep.

excellent recent "progress to date" science book on implications of hidden dimensions in the universe
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060531096?ie=UTF8&tag=reddit0e-20">Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe's Hidden Dimensions</a>

Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe's Hidden Dimensions

> Here is the thing permaculture is a bullshit made up thing.

No, it isn't.

> It doesn't have a consistent definition from one person to another.

Yes, it does. Permaculture is a group of techniques that collectively allow terraforming, which takes into account systems theory, and heterodox forms of geometry, hydrology, zoology and botany. We're the guys who tried to get a liberal sciences degree at university, and got kicked out either for paying too little attention, smoking too much weed, calling our professor an idiot and being able to prove it, or all of the above. Being a renegade is fun.

Most people don't know how to enunciate that clearly; especially considering that your average Permaculturist is an extremely right-brained hippie. I'm a left-brained hippie on the other hand, so for me, linear activities like sentence construction come more naturally.

The textbooks recommended in the intro Astronomy class here are An Introduction to Modern Astrophysics by Carroll & Ostlie and Foundations of Astrophysics. I've never read through either, but apparently the first one is much more detailed.

The older edition of Modern Astrophysics is significantly cheaper and will fit your purposes just as well: 1st Edition Carroll

His videos don't plug the related book(s), but I found them to be worthwhile as well. Everyone learns a little differently, your mileage may vary.

https://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Mechanics-Theoretical-Leonard-Susskind/dp/0465062903

https://www.amazon.com/Theoretical-Minimum-Start-Doing-Physics/dp/0465075681

Yes. If you're reasonably intelligent you can.

http://www.amazon.com/Fabric-Cosmos-Space-Texture-Reality/dp/0375412883

If you like this, you may enjoy this book that explains how to do these and several other constructions.

> It's inevitable and unavoidable.

David Deutsch (and I, being convinced) would argue that there is an infinitesimally small chance that it won't be unavoidable:
The Beginning of Infinity (I do wish he'd released it under a free license, but it was very much worth the $11)

The way I thought of time travel isn't so much ripping someone from spacetime at a certain point and plopping them back in at another point. Although I remember reading about how it can be done with wormholes, but I would imagine if we had artificial wormholes for this sort of thing, they'd be anchored and your destination would be wherever it's anchored to. It was this article in the Daily Mail.

If time travel is possible, I would imagine it's more like speeding through time rather than "teleporting" in time. Before I continue, I want to emphasize that the ideas I'm putting forth is based on spacetime being an intertwined "entity".

If we were to simply speed through time, we'd still be in the same location we started (with a margin of error). This does assume that we can't travel faster than the speed of light (assuming that it's still a constant), and general relativity had determined that gravity's influence moves about just as fast as light. With those assumptions, gravity will keep you anchored to the planet. Since you were already moving to begin with in relation to spacetime and you're still influenced by your environment to some degree, it should stand to reason you're going to be on that same patch of ground you were on when you started (assuming you've stood still the entire trip).

With that idea though, you're still in danger of coming back to normal time speed inside a concrete wall (or whatever material they choose to make their buildings out of by that point). However, tectonic shifts would only be an issue if the fault opened up right below you. As for mountain forming, you should be...relatively okay depending on how far in time you go. The earth itself should be pushing up on you. That's if you were to stand in one place the entire time.

Now, if you were to teleport through time (without the help of wormholes), I would imagine you'd be able to control WHERE in spacetime you end up.

I'm not a physicist, so I'm sure there are holes in my logic somewhere...but this was a realization that occurred to me when I was reading The Fabric of the Cosmos.

Cosmos (the original, and I think the new one) has a companion book. It was a NYT bestseller, in 1980, so it'll be easy to find at a secondhand book shop.

http://www.amazon.com/Cosmos-Carl-Sagan/dp/0345539435/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1462352386&sr=8-2&keywords=cosmos

For anyone really interested in an accessible look at the philosophy and science of nothingness and how the universe could have emerged from it, I recommend this book.

Great question! Here's a wikipedia article on the subject, here's a book I read a while back that I enjoyed(does not require prior experience with philosophy), and here's a summary of the debate for the more philosophically inclined.

No, not really. First of all the Big Bang was not an explosion of light and heat that we could "see" (unlike, say, a supernova) but a rapid expansion of space. That's all space, including the bit we're riding along on. Space is expanding everywhere - so everywhere we look, galaxies are rushing away from us. It's really hard to wrap one's mind around; try to think of a bunch of magic marker dots on a balloon you're blowing up. What direction would an ant on one of those dots look to find the origin of the expansion?

As far as the time travel idea, a crude analogy might be to suggest that when you look at the sun - the light from which is eight minutes old - you aren't traveling backwards in time; it just took a few minutes for the sunlight to reach you. Likewise when we see the light from far away stars, it just took a really really fucking long time to get here, so we're seeing light as it was emitted aeons ago.

We can detect cosmic microwave background radiation, which is pretty interesting stuff. It's also relevant here because it's uniformly distributed everywhere we look. Where is its origin if it's uniformly distributed?

[edit] I highly recommend you read Brian Greene's The Fabric of the Cosmos for starters.

oh boy, thank you so much for this detailed response! This is exactly what I was looking for. Seems like I have plenty to go on. In case anyone else is ever looking at this thread I have to add one more to your list of general space systems books- SMAD. SMAD and Griffin's book have been my bibles.

Schad's quote pretty much takes this guy's argument out at the knees, but I don't like Dawson, Pinker, or Krauss either, and Sam Harris is an idiot. Tyson is adorable, but there was that problematic claim in his Cosmos series about the seeds of life coming to Earth on asteroids. These guys overreach like the egomaniacs that they are and the Skeptics should disavow them.

I've been reading a book for a couple of months called, Why Does the World Exist?. The author, Jim Holt, consults with physicists, philosophers, and cosmologists, among others, but none of the aforementioned individuals. It's a joy to read.

A physicist named Lawrence Krauss wrote a book on this. Its called a universe from nothing. Good read. Also, if youre interested another good book that adresses different attempts to answer the question 'why is there something rather than nothing?' is called "Why does the world exist?" by Jim Holt.

Heres some links:

http://www.amazon.com/Universe-Nothing-There-Something-Rather/dp/145162445X

http://www.amazon.com/Why-Does-World-Exist-Existential/dp/0871403595/ref=la_B001IGFJ92_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1367993510&sr=1-1

edit: I just noticed that someone else mentioned Krauss in an above comment. Sorry for redundancy.

Hey, so here's a list I have recommended lately.

For real science: Death by Black Hole

If you want some absurd (yet still real) science: What If?

If you like classic mysteries: A Study in Scarlet

And here's some things I have been looking to get, maybe you'll like one:

The Republic

and

The No Bullshit Guide to Math and Physics

Hope one of these sparks an idea!

Not OP, just helping out with some formatting (and links!) because I like these suggestions.

> 1) The Magic Of Reality - Richard Dawkins
>
> 2) The Selfish Gene - Richard Dawkins
>
> 3)A Brief History Of Time - Stephen Hawking
>
> 4)The Grand Design - Stephen Hawking
>
> 4)Sapiens - Yuval Noah Harari (Any Book By Daniel Dennet)
>
> 5)Enlightenment Now - Steven Pinker
>
> 6)From Eternity Till Here - Sean Caroll (Highly Recommended)
>
> 7)The Fabric Of Cosmos - Brian Greene (If you have good mathematical understanding try Road To Reality By Roger Penrose)
>
> 8)Just Six Numbers - Martin Reese (Highly Recommended)

Maybe theoretical minimum by Leonard Susskind? I'm reading classic mechanics of this series and it's awesome, gives a totally new perspective to you and also teaches scientific notation.

I always thought the "seat belt rock" they recovered on Apollo 15 was funny.

Every Apollo mission was planned down to the minute, the planners even accounted for "gawping time" to let Astronauts just stare out into the abyss and appreciate where they were.

During Apollo 15 David Scott and James Irwin were driving around the Lunar Rover from crater to crater doing what science they could and taking a few samples. On their way back to the Lunar Module Scott spied an impressive basalt sample (it was large and can only be formed from Magma cooling at or near the surface of a planet or moon), he stopped the Rover and to account for the stop said he was experiencing a seat belt malfunction.

Irwin played along and distracted Mission Control by describing the craters. Scott got out of the rover grabbed the rock and then they hauled ass back to the Lunar Module.

Mission Control didn't know about this sample until after they had returned to Earth.

If you want to check out the transcripts they're all here.

If you like this kinda story, you should check out Mary Roach's book Packing For Mars. She's got a lot of other anecdotes in it.

I actually preferred this book “Why the world exists” by Jim Holt.

http://www.amazon.com/Why-Does-World-Exist-Existential/dp/0871403595


It’s more exhaustive when attempting to answer the question of existence from a critical perspective. Lawrence’s book seemed more geared towards people who shared his philosophical viewpoints IMO. Thanks for sharing though.

Bill Nye

• Obligatory Science Guy series
  
  
• Lectures / interviews / debates
  
  
• AMAs
  
  
• Books (though they're intended for children and teachers)
  
  
• Dancing with the Stars (I guess)
  
  Neil deGrasse Tyson
  
  
• Update of Sagan's series 'Cosmos' (obviously)
  
  
• Accompanying soundtrack(s) by Alan Silvestri
  
  
• StarTalk Radio
  
  
• Books
  
  
• Seasons 2-6 of NOVAscienceNOW
  
  
• Lectures / interviews / debates
  
  
• 3 out of 10 of the most popular AMAs in Reddit history
  
  Carl Sagan
  
  
• The bible of pop science itself, Cosmos (new edition features an introduction by Neil deGrasse Tyson)
  
  
• The legendary television series of the same name
  
  
• Accompanying soundtrack
  
  
• A publication history that dwarfs the others'
  
  
• Lectures / interviews / debates
  
  Stephen Hawking
  
  
• All kinds of publications, including academic work, children's lit, and pop science
  
  
• Several films and series (Into the Universe is a personal favorite)
  
  Other
  
  
• Pop science podcast Edumacation with filmmaker Kevin Smith and television writer Andrew McElfresh (NSFW)
  
  
• Discovery Channel's How the Universe Works (viewable on Netflix)

The New S.M.A.D

Google it, its the shit

Source : recently graduated aero/astro engineer

Edit: https://www.amazon.com/Space-Mission-Engineering-Technology-Library/dp/1881883159

I had gotten the book Death by Black Hole last April to read over the break, but never did so. I am trying to start reading it again. Its quite an interesting book

An even bigger stretch is Our Mathematical Universe by Max Tegmark.

I recently gave it a read, and it was very interesting. Max basically lays out how everything is math, using several layers of "multiverses" starting with the simplest one that is a side-effect of inflation.

That's a simplistic way of putting it, but he goes in painstaking detail, and eventually ends up at everything is math.

Please note thet even in this radical text, Max is never able to draw a connection between his thesis and anything theistic whatsoever...

Ah, Leonard Susskind is a boss.
I'd recommend giving The Black Hole War a read if you haven't already.

Max Tegmark thinks the universe is actually mathematical. Its an interesting idea but im not sure how i feel about it. He's definitely going beyond the mainstream with his ideas. He has a book and some youtube talks.

Some of my favorites

Coming of Age In the Milky Way

Chasing Venus

The Hole In The Universe

Atom A Single Oxygen Atom's Odyssey from the Big Bang to Life on Earth... and Beyond

You could first become clear on what you mean by “mechanism.” Are you speaking of these sorts of mechanisms:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/science-mechanisms/

Thinking About Mechanisms

When you talk of "fundamental" and of not believing in “anything solid," you might be looking for quantum mechanics and, more specifically, Quantum Field Theory: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/quantum-field-theory/

Depending on your background in mathematics, this book could be the best place to begin. It's also paired with a lecture series at Stanford. Here's an early quote from the text:

> Ordinarily, we learn classical mechanics first, before even attempting quantum mechanics. But quantum physics is much more fundamental than classical physics. As far as we know, quantum mechanics provides an exact description of every physical system, but some things are massive enough that quantum mechanics can be reliably approximated by classical mechanics.

Additionally, this lecture by Sean Carroll is very approachable, couching our understanding of the fundamental in the present state of physics (in 2013) and where physics seems to be headed.

Keep in mind that there are various interpretations of the quantum.

http://www.amazon.com/From-Eternity-Here-Ultimate-Theory/dp/0452296544 is tough , but really interesting IMO.

The Black Hole War by Leonard Susskind. Talks about his debate with Stephen Hawking and the Holographic Principle. Very readable and interesting book.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316016411/ref=s9_simz_gw_s1_p14_i1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-5&pf_rd_r=0E8TEMJ14J0S8B24VFTJ&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=470939291&pf_rd_i=507846

Also, Parallel Worlds by Michio Kaku is great, as well as The Trouble With Physics by Lee Smolin, which looks at some of the problems with string theory and discusses alternatives to the theory as well as commenting on the culture of string theory in academia. Interesting book.

For a completely introductory book: Quantum: Einstein, Bohr, and the debate about the nature of reality

Or if you're mathematically inclined... Quantum Physics: The Theoretical Minimum

(note that for the second book the lectures are available free online at theoreticalminimum.com

Physicists take the idea of additional unknown dimensions seriously. I think the implication is that some unusual phenomena share a common physical mechanism that isn't very well understood but that science is at least aware of. It's interesting to consider that some religious or spiritual phenomena might have an actual physical basis. I think we're culturally conditioned to believe that some supernatural phenomena are non-physical but increasing evidence points in the opposite direction.

http://www.amazon.com/Warped-Passages-Unraveling-Mysteries-Dimensions/dp/0060531096/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1375151231&sr=8-4&keywords=Lisa+Randall

Have you read "Packing For Mars" by Mary Roach?? I highly recommend it!

I really enjoyed The Black Hole War by Leonard Susskind.

I haven't read it yet, but Packing for Mars by Mary Roach is probably as hilarious and informative as everything else she's written (which is why I'm recommending it).

I feel similarly whenever I see a popular science/philosophy/crackpottery book with "Dr. Archibald Cornelius, PhD" or whatever on it. It makes me feel that their argument is weak enough that "hey, I have a degree!" is the best way to support it.

Serious scientists do this too sometimes, but not very often.

You all might enjoy:

The Black Hole War

Summary / Discussion

@Amazon

Although parts of the discussion on this thread need to differentiate with information in the 'real world' sense, and knowledge / inferred information.

My husband did his masters in space systems engineering and SMAD was pretty much the bible. Maybe you can find it at a library near you.

Hawking admitted he was wrong and paid off the bet, Len Susskind wrote a book on 'The Black Hole War' that covers it all pretty well, slightly iffy quality vid of a talk on the subject from himself here.

I don't think you could really call it settled necessarily, as far as I understand it there is currently another (continuing?) debate surrounding the 'firewall paradox'. I guess this article sums it up ok.

> 1. World either exists since ever or was brought to existence.

If you were to assume the latter, then this argument doesn’t really make sense. There is a real danger of arguing in a circle and finishing up where we started. If, for example, I begin with the assumption (hypothesis) that ‘a God exists who created all things’, I cannot subsequently use the existence of the universe as an argument for the existence of God. In other words, reasoning that goes as follows is invalid:

1. A God exists who created the universe.
   
2. The universe exists.
   
3. Therefore it must had had a creator (a God who created the universe).
   
   In a valid syllogism the statements (1) and (2) would lead to a conclusion (3) that is not contained in either (1) and (2), but in this example we simply end up by deducing what we assumed in the first place.
   
   
   If you believe in the former however, that the universe has always existed, that starts to make sense. Think about this;
   
   "The Big Bang does not state that the cosmos somehow “leapt into being” out of a preexisting state of nothingness. To see why, lets’ play a tape of the universe's history backward. With the expansion reversed, we see the contents of the universe compressing together, growing more and more compressed. Ultimately, at the very beginning of cosmic history -- which, for convenience, we’ll label t=0 -- everything is in a state of infinite compression, shrunk to a point: the “singularity.” Now, Einstein’s general theory of relativity tells us that shape of space-time itself is determined by the way energy and matter are distributed. And when energy and matter are infinitely compressed, so too is space time. It simply disappears. It is tempting to imagine the Big bang to be like the beginning of a concert. You’re seated for a while fiddling with your program, and then suddenly at t=0 the music starts. But the analogy is mistaken. Unlike the beginning of a concert, the singularity at the beginning of the universe is not an event IN time. Rather, it is a temporal boundary or edge. There are no moments of time “before” t=0. So there was never a time when nothingness prevailed. And there was no “coming into being” - at least not a temporal one. Even though the universe is finite in age, it has always existed, if by “always” you mean at all instants of time. If there was never a transition from Nothing to Something, there is no need to look for a cause, divine or otherwise, that brought the universe into existence. Nor is there any need to worry about where all the matter and energy in the universe came from. There was no “sudden and fantastic” violation of the law of conservation of mass-energy at the Big Bang, as many theists claim. The universe has always had the same mass-energy content, from t=0 right up to the present."
   (Taken from; Why Does The World Exist, by Jim Holt)