The instant New York Times bestseller about humanity's place in the
universe--and how we understand it.
**
****"Vivid...impressive....Splendidly informative."--The New York
Times*******
********"Succeeds spectacularly."--Science
*"A tour de force."--*Salon
Already internationally acclaimed for his elegant, lucid writing on the
most challenging notions in modern physics, Sean Carroll is emerging as
one of the greatest humanist thinkers of his generation as he brings his
extraordinary intellect to bear not only on Higgs bosons and extra
dimensions but now also on our deepest personal questions: Where are we?
Who are we? Are our emotions, our beliefs, and our hopes and dreams
ultimately meaningless out there in the void? Do human purpose and
meaning fit into a scientific worldview?
In short chapters filled with intriguing historical anecdotes, personal
asides, and rigorous exposition, readers learn the difference between
how the world works at the quantum level, the cosmic level, and the
human level*--*and then how each connects to the other. Carroll's
presentation of the principles that have guided the scientific
revolution from Darwin and Einstein to the origins of life,
consciousness, and the universe is dazzlingly unique.
Carroll shows how an avalanche of discoveries in the past few hundred
years has changed our world and what really matters to us. Our lives are
dwarfed like never before by the immensity of space and time, but they
are redeemed by our capacity to comprehend it and give it meaning.
The Big Picture is an unprecedented scientific worldview, a tour de
force that will sit on shelves alongside the works of Stephen Hawking,
Carl Sagan, Daniel Dennett, and E. O. Wilson for years to come.
