The Universe of Fluctuations (eBook)

B.G. Sidharth got his B.Sc. (Mathematics Honors), M.Sc. and PhD from Calcutta University. After working for several years in Quantum Scattering, Dr. Sidharth’s work entered on the fundamental problems facing Physics today. His 1997 papers, contrary to the ruling paradigm, predicted a dark energy driven accelerating Universe with a small cosmological constant. Remarkably, this was confirmed in 1998. His work deals with fuzzy spacetime and the unification of interactions and similar problems within this context. Besides a large number of research publications in international journals, Dr. Sidharth also authored and edited a number of books. In addition he has lectured widely in the United States, Canada, Europe and other places. B.G. Sidharth is the founder-director of the B.M. Birla Science Centre, Hyderabad, India, and its constituent, the International Institute for Applicable Mathematics and Information Sciences, Hyderabad, and Udine, Italy. He was associated with the International Center for Theoretical Physics, Trieste, Italy, for many years having been a Senior Associate. Dr. Sidharth is on the Editorial / Advisory boards of international journals, institutes and award committees. Last but not least he played host to many Nobel Laureates and other physicists of World importance.

1: THE UNIFICATION PARADIGM. PREFACE.
1.1 Introduction. 1.2 Inertial Mass. 1.3 Enter General Relativity. 1.4 Further Considerations. 1.5 Prospect.
2: STANDARD MODELS OF PHYSICS AND COSMOLOGY.
2.1 The Strong and Weak Interactions. 2.2 Gauge Fields. 2.3 Standard Cosmology.
3: DIFFERENT APPROACHES: QUANTUM SUPERSTRINGS AND QUANTUM GRAVITY.
3.1 String Theory. 3.2 Loop Quantum Gravity.
4: OTHER APPROACHES.
4.1 Introduction. 4.2 Quantum General Relativity. 4.3 Scale Relativity. 4.4 Cantorian Spacetime.
5: FUZZY SPACETIME AND THE PLANCK SCALE.
5.1 The Origins of Fuzzy Spacetime. 5.2 Further Considerations. 5.3 Quantum Geometry. 5.4 The Unification of Gravitation and Electromagnetism. 5.5 The Planck Scale. 5.6 The Universe as Planck Oscillators. 5.7 Modelling Fuzzy Spacetime as a Double Wiener Process. 5.8 Other Issues.
6: THE UNIVERSE OF FLUCTUATIONS.
6.1 The 'Old' Cosmology. 6.2 Dark Energy and Fluctuations. 6.3 Issues and Ramifications. 6.4 The Nature of Spacetime. 6.5 Further Considerations. 6.6 A Final Comment.
7: QUANTUM GEOMETRY.
7.1 Introduction. 7.2 A Gauge like Formulation. 7.3 Gauge Fields. 7.4 Quantum Geometry.
8: HOW FUNDAMENTAL IS GRAVITATION?
8.1 Introduction. 8.2 Interrelationships. 8.3 Comments. 8.4 Gravitation as Weak Electromagnetism.
9: THE ELUSIVE MASS SPECTRUM. 10: EXPERIMENTAL EFFECTS.
10.1 Introduction. 10.2 Modified Dispersion. 10.3 Particle Behaviour. 10.4 A New Short Range Force. 10.5 Gravitational Effects. 10.6 Bosons as Bound States of Fermions. 10.7 Can We Harness the Zero Point Field? 10.8 Retrospect.
REFERENCES. INDEX