A Tear at the Edge of Creation: A Radical New Vision for Life in an Imperfect Universe

For most of his career, physicist Gleiser (The Dancing Universe) was a ""true believer in unification,"" seeing in string theory a ""more profound description of Nature"" with ""a higher level of mathematical symmetry."" He now rejects the search for a perfect theory as an improvable article of belief akin to monotheism. Explaining his turnaround, Gleiser points to the game-changing 1998 discovery that the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate, indicating that 96 percent of the ""stuff of the cosmos"" is undetectable ""dark matter"" or ""dark energy."" Even the 4 percent of matter contained in the known universe reveals anomalous behavior, like the predominance of matter over anti-matter, and the asymmetry of ""left-handed"" neutrinos. Gleiser argues that life, and perhaps even matter, could not have developed in a symmetrical universe: ""Behind every imperfection there is a mechanism for generating structure and complex behavior."" The conclusions Gleiser draws from his reconfiguration include the idea that time has a beginning and that ""human understanding of the world is forever a work in progress""; though Gleiser has a remarkable gift for elucidating complex scientific concepts (without mathematics), this is not a volume for novices.