Cycles of Time An Extraordinary New View of the Universe

From the best-selling author of The Emperor's New Mind and The Road to Reality, a groundbreaking book that provides new views on three of cosmology's most profound questions: What, if anything, came before the Big Bang? What is the source of order in our universe? What is its ultimate future? Current understanding of our universe dictates that all matter will eventually thin out to zero density, with huge black holes finally evaporating away into massless energy. Roger Penroseone of the most innovative mathematicians of our timeturns around this predominant picture of the universe's "heat death," arguing how the expected ultimate fate of our accelerating, expanding universe can actually be reinterpreted as the "Big Bang" of a new one. Along the way to this remarkable cosmological picture, Penrose sheds new light on basic principles that underlie the behavior of our universe, describing various standard and nonstandard cosmological models, the fundamental role of the cosmic microwave background, and the key status of black holes. Ideal for both the amateur astronomer and the advanced physicistwith plenty of exciting insights for each Cycles of Time is certain to provoke and challenge. Intellectually thrilling and accessible, this is another essential guide to the universe from one of our preeminent thinkers.

Roger Penrose is Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University. He has received a number of prizes and awards, including the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on black hole formation, as well as the 1988 Wolf Prize for physics, which he shared with Stephen Hawking for their joint contribution to our understanding of the universe. His books include Cycles of Time, The Road to Reality, The Nature of Space and Time, which he wrote with Hawking, and The Emperor’s New Mind. He has lectured extensively at universities throughout America. He lives in Oxford.