Caleb ScharfRezensionen

Nicola Copernico, astronomo e matematico polacco del XVI secolo, ha proposto la teoria eliocentrica, secondo cui i pianeti orbitano intorno al Sole e non intorno alla Terra, come si credeva all'epoca. Questo ha portato a una rivoluzione scientifica e ha ridefinito il posto dell'uomo nell'universo. Copernico ha sfidato la visione geocentrica dell'universo, basata sull'idea che la Terra fosse al centro dell'universo e che tutto ruotasse intorno ad essa. Questa visione era stata accettata per secoli e aveva radici nella filosofia greca antica.

La teoria ha avuto un impatto enorme sulla scienza, la filosofia e la religione. Ha portato a una maggiore comprensione dell'universo e ha aperto la strada alla fisica moderna. Ha anche sollevato questioni sulla posizione dell'uomo nell'universo e sulla sua relazione con Dio. La teoria eliocentrica è stata poi sviluppata e confermata da altri scienziati, tra cui Galileo Galilei e Johannes Kepler. La loro ricerca ha portatoalla nascita dell'astronomia moderna e ha contribuito alla rivoluzione scientifica che ha caratterizzato il Rinascimento e l'inizio dell'età moderna.

Fu una svolta epocale nella storia della scienza e della cultura. Ha dimostrato come la scienza possa portare a una rielaborazione radicale delle concezioni tradizionali, aprendo nuove prospettive sulla conoscenza dell'universo e del nostro posto in esso. Si ebbe un impatto significativo sulla religione del tempo. La visione geocentrica dell'universo, basata sull'idea che la Terra fosse al centro dell'universo e che tutto ruotasse intorno ad essa, era stata accettata per secoli e aveva radici nella filosofia greca antica. Questa visione era stata anche accettata dalla Chiesa cattolica romana, che la considerava un dogma della fede. Copernico ha posto una sfida alla visione tradizionale dell'universo e ha sollevato domande sulla posizione dell'uomo nell'universo e sulla sua relazione con Dio. In particolare, sembrava contraddire la Bibbia, che descrive l'universo in termini geocentrici. Per questo motivo, la Chiesa cattolica ha reagito in modo critico alla teoria di Copernico. Nel 1616, la Chiesa ha inserito il libro di Copernico "De revolutionibus orbium coelestium" nell'Indice dei libri proibiti, che era un elenco di libri considerati eretici o pericolosi per la fede cattolica. Nel 1633, Galileo Galilei, che aveva sostenuto le idee di Copernico, è stato processato per eresia dalla Chiesa e costretto a ritrattare le sue affermazioni.

Tuttavia, non tutti i leader religiosi del tempo hanno reagito in modo negativo alla teoria di Copernico. Ad esempio, il teologo tedesco Thomas Murner ha difeso la visione geocentrica dell'universo e criticato la teoria di Copernico, ma ha anche sottolineato che la scienza e la religione dovevano essere viste come complementari e non contrapposte.

In generale, la teoria eliocentrica di Copernico ha rappresentato una sfida per la visione tradizionale dell'universo e ha portato alla revisione di molte idee precedenti. Ha anche sollevato domande profonde sulla relazione tra scienza e religione, che sono state oggetto di dibattito per secoli. Tuttavia, con il passare del tempo, la maggior parte delle differenze tra scienza e religione sono state risolte o almeno attenuate, e oggi molti credenti vedono la scienzae la religione come complementari e non in conflitto tra loro.

This is a book exploring the ideas brought about by computers: information theory, dataomes, biological structures, man-machine interface, new ways of thinking about everything, etc. Information is not just data, but can be revealed by the structure of computers, their design, and the flow back and forth. Genes are also complicated and we are learning more about this every day. Many challenges are faced by evolutionary biologists to unravel these structures. Migration patterns, anthropological research, language, snd storage of ideas are also referred to.½

"ALife", Boltzmann brains, category theory, "corgs" (core algorithms), freebits, holobionts, metalworlds, top-down causation -- this is a complicated book! Scharf seeks to make progress toward understanding the nature of biological life by considering how integrated our human existence is with our external data -- our "dataome". In the second-to-last chapter, he argues that the dataome is comparable in importance to the billions-of-years-ago oxygenation of Earth's atmosphere in opening up vast possibilities for future evolution. The last chapter, entitled "A Universe of Dataomes", is even more radical. I'd say that skepticism is called for, as is consideration of some counterbalancing doom-soon scenarios.

A great and fascinating look from the cosmos down to the atoms, the nuts and bolts and more of how the universe (and us, and everything) works. The book does a really good job of explaining more of the jargon and technical side and hard to understand aspects of the science (quarks, string theory, quantum mechanics, foam, multi-verse, etc.) Some of the science was a bit dumbed down and a few liberties taken to make things make sense (laymen wise) but overall it was done for the better good and to make things make more sense as a whole.

The artwork in the book is absolutely beautiful and the infographics are very well done and help showcase whatever is being discussed.

This was an awesome journey that gave me a sense of being a part of a universe aware of itself. The trip goes in a very logical order and the writing is clear and entertaining as well. It has many illustrations. I read this in ebook format on a tablet so that I could zoom in on the images and see them in color. The science is made understandable, or at least as much as is possible when we get down to those very small bits.

This largish-format color-illustration book summarizes all known reality on all 63 order-of-magnitude scales from the whole observable universe (10^27 meters) down to the Planck length (10^-35 m). Except for 16 "empty" (?) scales between elementary particles and the Planck length, each scale description is centered around an anchoring illustration. (I was a little disappointed that not every one of these anchor images zooms in on the exact center of its predecessor, but perhaps that would be difficult or impossible to arrange.) The volume would be a beautiful and informative intro-to-science book for those in need of such.

I considered just four stars, but this is an engaging book that covers so much in a very readable depth. From the astronomy of the namesake to a greater cosmology to the origins of life in the universe, Scharf tells a wonderful story of heliocentrism, galaxies, exoplanets, anthropic principle, abiogenesis and the possibilities of life elsewhere.

We are both significant and insignificant.

I need to read Scharf's first book.

One of the wonderful things about modern astrophysics (and science in general, I suppose) is that it puts us in our place. I'm not being facetious about this. Four centuries ago, Earth was the center of the universe and Man was the reason it was created about 6,000 years ago. Now we know that the universe has no center, it is unimaginably vast, and our Milky Way Galaxy is only one of hundreds of billions of galaxies, each of which contains a multitude of stars of which our Sun is but one. It's a normal, mid-size star, and although it's been around for a while (about 4.5 billion years, so far), it's only a third the age of a universe, and when our Sun finally dies and takes it planets with it some 5 billion years in the future, the rest of the universe will go on without pause.

Gravity's Engines presents this sobering perspective remarkably well by focusing on black holes and how they influence the formation of galaxies and stars and, ultimately, us.

What are we with regard to the universe? Is Earth a rarity? Is it unique? What about life? How common is it? And what of life like us, life that can ponder our place in the universe? In this book, Caleb Scharf offers no answers. What he does instead is summarize what we currently know, or think we know, that may have bearing on such questions, and what more we need to find out to even estimate probabilities. He does venture a few opinions, of course, most of which I found quite well explained and seemingly sensible. This is not a dry, academic tome, or a simple history of scientific discovery. It's written with infectious enthusiasm for the subject and is quite enjoyable.

ვართ თუ არა განსაკუთრებულები და გამორჩეულები კოსმოსური მასშტაბით - ერთ-ერთი ყველაზე მნიშვნელოვანი კითხვაა რისი გაგებაც ადამიანს სურს. ამიტომ თუ ეგზისტენციალურ თემებზე ფიქრობთ, ალბათ ამ წიგნის სათაური მიიპყრობს თქვენ ყურადღებას. კოპერნიკის პრინციპი და ანთროპული პრინციპი ორი მთავარი ხედვაა რომელიც ჩვენი სამყაროს გაგების პერსპექტივაში გვხვდება. დეცენტრალიზება და განსაკუთრებული როლი. ორივე პრინციპი სხვადასხვა ფაქტებზე ამახვილებს ყურდღებას და სხვადასხვა პერსპექტივას ირჩევს, იმის საჩვენებლად თუ რამდენად მნიშვნელოვანნი ან უმნიშვნელო ვართ. ქეილაბ შარფის აზრით არც ერთი ხედავა არაა სრულიად მართალი, რადგან ჩვენ განსაკუთრებულნი ვართ მაგრამ არა უნიკალურნი, მნიშვნელოვანნი მაგრამ არა ერთადერთნი (დიდად სავარაუდოდ).
ჩვენი მზის სისტემა ნამდვილად არ არის ტიპიური, მაგრამ არც ერთადერთი და განუმეორებელია. ჩვენი ბიოქიმია კი ყველაზე ტიპიური ელემენტებიგან შედგება.

საინტერესო წიგნია, საინტერესო ფაქტებით და ხედვით, თუმცა ბევრი საკითხი ღია და პასუხგაუცემელი რჩება, გათვითცნობიერებული მკითხველი მიხვდება მიზეზს "ჯერ კიდევ ბევრი რამ უცნობია ჩვენი ადგილის შესახებ სამყაროში" ქეილაბს კი ის დარჩენია რომ ამ ინფორმაციის, დაშვებების და ვარაუდების ზღვაში გააკეთოს ფრთხილი და სწორი ანალიზი.

საინტერესო იქნებოდა ავტორს რომ განევრცო ზოგიერთი თემა, მაგალითად ინტელექტთან დაკავშირებით, დევიდ დოიჩის აზრით ჩვენ ვართ არსებობის ცენტრი Hub of existence (ერთ-ერთი) რადგან ჩვენი ტვინი რომელიც იმდენად განსხვავებულია ფიზიკურად რამდენადაც ეს საერთოდ შესაძლებელია იყოს მაგალითად კვაზარზე, გამოსახავს მსგავს მათემატიკურ და მიზეზობრივ არსს, (ცოდნის შეძენა და კვაზარის ფიზიკური ახსნა) რომელიც დროში იზრდება. საინტერესო ხედვაა ინტელექტის და საინტერესო არგუმენტი იქნებოდა ჩვენი მნიშვნელობის ჭრილში.

My second book by Scharf, as brilliant and engaging as his "Extrasolar Planets..." Less of a textbook; fewer difficult formula (of 100, I could only solve one.) Lots of info here, like lunar reflectivity, very deceptive; it seems bright to us, but the Moon reflects only about 10% of th light that hits it, "about the same as a lump of coal" (71). Of the Sun, he says: "Thus ends the ten-billion year spree of this one star that we decided to take an interest in" (66).
Scharf's book questions the "rarity" of the habitable conditions of Earth.
Scharf notes that astronomical time is not human time, and he writes of "a few hundred million years" as if brief--and after a chapter, you agree. "The cosmos ticks to the beat of a different clock" (48)--why, humans arose over only a couple hundred million years. Back 4 billion years, our favorite star produced 30% less energy, but there's evidence the world held water even then. Not clear how.
He calls the Newtonian clockwork solar system "The Grand Delusion," title of his second chapter. We can tell from the myriad planetary systems that have been identified since the first in 1992, and the 2nd a in '95.
There is a stochastic, random or "chaotic" (mathematically) element in our solar system; and, until the invention of computers, the n-body problem was, as Newton concluded, insoluble. Now hundreds of millions of variables in millions of computations can approximate, say, our solar system in 500 million years. Doesn't look that good. Possible Mercury (most elliptical except Pluto) into Venus, possible Venus into Earth, etc. Besides the revealing cosmology, Scharf writes well: note the gerund in the first quotation, the verb in the second here: "Our planet ..[includes] a later 'veneer' of asteroid impacts. In that explosive peppering...."(61); and 2) "even the length of time our entire species has staggered around on the surface of the Earth..."(105)

The Copernican Principle can be a tricky thing: It says that we (Earth, Earth life, the solar system) are not special (are mediocre), but recent discoveries of wildly different exoplanetary systems might lead you to say that we *are* special. But, on further thought, you might say that the differences among the exosystems themselves means that we share the property of *uniqueness* with all the other systems and thus are mediocre after all! That's perhaps not too accurate as a synopsis of Scharf's book, which contains a set of astrobiological reflections sometimes ending with inconclusive statements (such as "Modern Bayesian inferences about abiogenesis lead us back to square one" -- p 183) but finally closing with suggestions for a "cosmochaotic" principle.

Scharf provides a clear and stunning immersion into the world of--well, really, literally, the WORLDS of--exoplanets and exosuns. (I haven't seen this one used, but why not--we have "exomoons.") So far I have perused mostly the charts and attendant prose, but that is no small thing since the charts cover "The Tree of Life, from Archaea to Eukarya." "Carbon Structures observed in Interstellaer medium (short chains, Bucky tubes, soot, diamonds!)," "Spectral features of molecular species of proto-star W33A (from CH2OH to CO and silicates)," and standard knowledge such as Airy diffraction (for telescopes) and the Keeling curve (atmospheric CO2 measured on Maui since 1958).
Related to the charts are a couple hundred equations which I struggle to comprehend from my college calculus a couple decades back. Prof. Scharf often apologizes for simplifying the math by, for example, assuming something that could be wrong; for example, a formula he adduces that a stellar system "harbors a surviving terrestrial-type planet," one which surprisingly peaks at slightly higher metallicity than the solar (p.411). May I say I am grateful for any simplifications, which still leave me wracking my mind for f(x) and delta S.
I write this as the author of a biography of Giordano Bruno, who would be amazed to see his death-defying (and death-resulting) idea of habitable worlds taken to its precisian scientific heights...so to speak.

Excellent, accessible, but I'm going to have to read it again to really understand it.

This popular-level adventure in astrophysics includes an account of the author's participation in investigating the apparent role of the supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies in regulating (limiting) the rate of star formation and thus helping determine the character of the universe as we know it. "Breaking just one of the crisscrossing strands of cosmic history and energy that connect us to black holes could subvert the entire pathway to life here on our small rocky planet." (p 209)