In Search of the Multiverse: Parallel Worlds, Hidden Dimensions, and the Ultimate Quest for the Frontiers of Reality Hardcover - 2010 - 1st Edition

From the jacket flap

Is our universe just one of many?

The most fascinating mysteries in modern physics seem to point us in that direction. As impossible as it seems--that other universes came before ours, float alongside ours, or even mirror ours--the evidence is surprisingly convincing.

In his most mind-blowing, sweeping work since Schrodinger's "Kittens and the Search for Reality," acclaimed science writer and astrophysicist John Gribbin takes readers "In Search of the Multiverse," launching an extraordinary journey to the frontiers of reality. Touching on the newest research on quantum physics, thermodynamics, string theory, and even the nature of God, this brilliant tour of the current state of cosmology also goes beyond the realm of settled science to the astonishing questions theoretical physicists have only now begun to ask.

Gribbin has long been known for his ability to explain even the most bewildering and complex ideas in the simplest of terms, and that skill is fully on display here. In this new book, he reveals why even the greatest thinkers can't explain the realities of quantum physics without bumping up against the unimaginable. He explores certain anomalies in our Universe that only make sense when you incorporate ideas that were once found only in science fiction. But which fantastical notion of alternate universes is the right one?

Gribbin guides you expertly through the competing Multiverse theories, who thought them up, and what problems they were hoping to solve with such outlandish ideas. You'll visit a realm of infinite space containing an infinite number of regions separated by infinite distances and ruled by different sets of physical laws. You'll drift along an infinite time line, on which different universes are strung out, one after the other, like beads on a wire. And you'll leaf through an infinitely thick book stuffed with an infinite number of pages: each page a different universe, existing in a different dimension--tantalizingly close together, but eternally unable to communicate with each other.

If our universe is three-dimensional and infinite, how could it be inside something else? Is it possible to travel to one of these alternate universes? Are particles traveling there every moment? How can scientists prove the existence of the Multiverse if they can't travel to it? Read "In Search of the Multiverse" and enter a world that is more mind-bending, thought-provoking, and imagination-sparking than the fantasy worlds you'd discover in a bookstore full of science fiction novels.