ATOM An Oddyssey from the Big Bang to Life on Earth…and Beyond
lawrence-m-krauss
None pages, Unbound
ISBN: 0759583242
ISBN13:
Language: English
Publish: January 1, 2001
AstronomyBiologyEvolutionHistoryNonfictionPhilosophyPhysicsPopular ScienceScienceSpace
We are all, literally, star children. Every atom in our bodies was once inside the fiery core of some supergiant star which exploded billions of years before our solar system formed. Lawrence Krauss takes us along for the ride of the life of a single particle, an oxygen atom, and helps us understand where matter came from, how many stars and galaxies helped create our universe, how the Milky Way formed, and how the thousand million lives and deaths our atom experiences will affect all life on earth. Krauss presents the most cutting edge science in the world though understandable everyday phenomena. The story begins when the universe was the size of an atom itself, and we follow it throughout its continuous transformations of matter and energy, from heat to gas, from mountains to people. The breath you just took is as likely to contain atoms from the final breath of Julius Caesar as it is to contain a virus from the cough of your child’s classmate. And that same atom, 100 billion years from now, when all the stars have burned out and the sun has swallowed the earth– that atom’s life span will continue. Krauss predicts what will be spa