cover image AFTER THE BEGINNING: A Cosmic Journey Through Space and Time

AFTER THE BEGINNING: A Cosmic Journey Through Space and Time

Norman K. Glendenning, . . World Scientific, $28 (208pp) ISBN 978-1-86094-448-2

Physicist Glendenning recently made the headlines of scientific publications for his theory that quarks may exist in a free state ("quark matter") in the cores of neutron stars. Quarks in general have been bound by the strong nuclear force since the beginning of the universe, so Glendenning's theory, if proven, would be a turning point in our understanding of the universe at its birth. In this book, Glendenning, of the University of California's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, takes readers on a tour of the early universe. Much of this material will be familiar to science buffs, but the author is particularly enlightening on early "eras" in the history of the universe (superradiant, hadronic, leptonic, etc.), when elementary particles and then atoms were just starting to come together. Early chapters ramble, but the book comes to life when Glendenning tackles how matter came into existence, the creation of the heavier elements in stellar furnaces and the coalescing of large structures like galaxies. Readers with mathematical expertise will appreciate the boxed material in each chapter written at a higher technical level. Glendenning's last chapter, on the universe's possible fate, is little more than perfunctory. Still, this account will serve a range of readers, from casual browsers to dedicated science enthusiasts. B&w illus. (Dec.)