Books.org participates in affiliate programs including Bookshop.org and the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. We may earn a commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this page, at no additional cost to you.
Synopsis
From the dawn of humankind, men and women have looked at change—as wrought by weather, the seasons, and, most strikingly, the inexorable advance of time—as something essentially to be feared. And partially from this fear the great religions and mythologies have arisen, systems which gave meaning to the ever-changing world, and, quite often, immortality to ourselves. By the late nineteenth century, the quest for ultimate meanings became largely the province of science, and today, change still figures (on the surface, at least) as a malevolent force: most of the cosmological theories formulated in recent years predict the ultimate extinction of the world by universal entropy.
Bringing together the evidence and insights of biology and physics, of astronomy and cosmology, Louise Young offers a profoundly original and stirring vision of order, form, change, and the creative forces in the universe. Opposing the long-held beliefs of many scientists that the universe is running down and will eventually collapse upon itself, Young eloquently argues that the tendency toward increasing entropy is merely one aspect of a single process that is creating more complex, highly organized, and more efficient forms of matter all the time, and at every level—from the microscopic to the stellar.
In vivid, compelling prose, Louise Young—an award-winning writer on science and a former physicist—takes us on an unforgettable tour of the world around us, showing how even the most ordinary aspects of life and the universe display a strangely beautiful symmetry. She clearly demonstrates that creation was not simply some big-bang eons ago, but rather is an ongoing process, one in which we are both witnesses and participants. Illustrating her findings with many remarkable photographs and fascinating examples ranging from geology to animal behavior, and from oceanography to genetics, Young gracefully canvasses the themes of growth, change creativity, and the mystery of the universe in a book that is as much poetry as it is science.
Based on solid scientific knowledge, yet informed by a refreshingly philosophical sensibility, The Unfinished Universe is a book that will inspire anyone who has ever questioned their place and purpose in a world filled with uncertainty and change.
Publishers Weekly
Young's previous book, The Blue Planet, disclosed most attractively this physicist-author's gift for writing vividly, even poetically, about our planet's geologic and other formative marvels. Here again she exhibits that flairbut with a bold philosophic turn, carrying the religionist's familiar argument about the universe's development from the notion of Design, so dominant up to Darwin's time, to a high degree of scientific sophistication as she delineates her view of the universe as unfinished processa continuum always and inevitably evolving toward Form, with humans as they are today a creative evolutionary participant. Nature seen whole, she argues with a persuasive meta-scientific logic, gives every evidence of being in the throes of ``cosmic birth''a concept that is clearly not new, despite her subtitle. She moves in areas of intuition, poetry and religion throughout, referring eloquently to the supportive insights of thinkers from the Hindus to Omar Khayyam, Bergson, Teilhard and Loren Eiseley. Creationists won't find comfort here; nowhere does Young posit paternal Deity as separate from human life and nature. (April)