Cosmological koans. Agirre E.

Anthony Agirre is not only a well -known physicist, cosmologist and mathematician, but also a popularizer of science, who acted as an expert in a number of documentaries. In his “cosmological koans,” he decided to talk about the structure of our world precisely as a physicist and resorted to this to the practice of Zen-Buddhist koans. Coans are a kind of parable in which the doctrine of reality is concluded, as it is understood by adherents of Zen Buddhism. There are several dozens of such koans in the book, and each of them affects any one topic (classic and quantum mechanics, calculation theory, entropy, etc.). It is not easy to talk about such complex objects is understandable and exciting, but the author succeeded: a thoughtful reader once again convinces that our universe is a rather mysterious place and that there is a connection between its properties and the existence of people.