Ultimate Horizons: Probing the Limits of the Universe (The Frontiers Collection)

Annotation In the last hundred years, modern physics and cosmology have shown that there exist regions of the universe forever beyond our reach, hidden by truly ultimate horizons. Such regions exist in those remote parts of the universe where, from our point of view, space expands faster than the speed of light. They are found in black holes, where the gravity is strong enough to retain even light within its field of attraction. And in the realm of the very small, quarks must remain forever confined to their world of extreme density and can never be removed from it. The aim of this book is to describe these ultimate horizons, how they were discovered, how they shape our view of the world, and what clues we have about a world beyond them Preface 7 Contents 10 1 Horizons 12 1.1 The Horizon of Accessibility 14 1.2 Forbidden Rooms in the Universe 17 1.3 Ultimate Constituents 19 1.4 The End of the Earth 20 1.5 The Roof of Heaven 23 2 The Vanishing Stars 29 2.1 The Speed of Light 29 2.2 Why Is the Sky Dark at Night? 39 2.3 The Big Bang 43 2.4 Cosmic Inflation 47 2.5 The Absolute Elsewhere 48 3 The Secret Glow of Black Holes 52 3.1 The Escape Velocity 52 3.2 Tidal Effects 57 3.3 The Sea of Unborn Particles 60 3.4 Invisible Light on the Horizon 63 4 The Visions of an Accelerating Observer 67 4.1 Gravity and Acceleration 69 4.2 A Total End of Communication 71 4.3 The Temperature of the Vacuum 72 4.4 Lightning in Empty Space 74 4.5 Quantum Entanglement 75 5 The Smallest Possible Thing 79 5.1 Why Does the Sun Shine? 85 5.2 The Strong Nuclear Interaction 86 5.3 The Weak Nuclear Interaction 92 5.4 The Quarks 96 5.5 The Standard Model 103 5.6 The Confinement Horizon 106 6 Quark Matter 110 6.1 Quarks Become Deconfined 112 6.2 Collective Behavior 115 6.3 The Ultimate Temperature of Matter 119 6.4 The Little Bang 121 6.5 Universal Hadrosynthesis 125 6.6 How Hot is the Quark--Gluon Plasma? 127 7 Hidden Symmetries 132 7.1 The Ising Model 137 7.2 Shadow Particles 143 7.3 Local Symmetries 145 7.4 Primordial Equality 147 8 The Last Veil 154 8.1 Ultimate Horizons in Time 155 8.2 Ultimate Horizons in Space 158 8.3 The End of Determinacy 159 8.4 Hyperspace 161 8.5 Cosmic Connections 163 A Notes on Notation 167 B Further Reading 170 Author Index 171 Index 174 Front Matter....Pages i-xii Horizons....Pages 1-17 The Vanishing Stars....Pages 19-41 The Secret Glow of Black Holes....Pages 43-57 The Visions of an Accelerating Observer....Pages 59-70 The Smallest Possible Thing....Pages 71-101 Quark Matter....Pages 103-124 Hidden Symmetries....Pages 125-146 The Last Veil....Pages 147-159 Back Matter....Pages 161-172