Preview
  • Cosmological Koans

  • A Journey to the Heart of Physical Reality
  • By: Anthony Aguirre
  • Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross
  • Length: 12 hrs and 33 mins
  • 4.6 out of 5 stars (18 ratings)

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Cosmological Koans

By: Anthony Aguirre
Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross
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Publisher's summary

Cosmological Koans invites the listener into an intellectual adventure of the highest order.

Through more than 50 Koans - pleasingly paradoxical vignettes following the ancient Zen tradition - leading physicist Anthony Aguirre takes the listener across the world from West to East, and through ideas spanning the age, breadth, and depth of the Universe.

Using these beguiling Koans (Could there be a civilization on a mote of dust? How much of your fate have you made? Who cleans the universe?) and a flair for explaining complex science, Aguirre covers cosmic questions that scientific giants from Aristotle to Galileo to Heisenberg have grappled with, from the meaning of quantum theory and the nature of time to the origin of multiple universes.

A playful and enlightening book, Cosmological Koans explores the strange hinterland between the deep structure of the physical world and our personal experience of it, giving listeners what Einstein himself called “the most beautiful and deepest experience” anyone can have: a sense of the mysterious.

©2019 Anthony Aguirre (P)2019 Recorded Books
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What listeners say about Cosmological Koans

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Fascinating

Mind ending magical realism applied to physics. Thoroughly enjoyable!! You will understand the Universe and the quantum like never before !

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Some powerful ideas

There were some really powerful ideas in here and I enjoyed it overall. However it was somewhat long, very dense and I didn’t care for the person reading it so much. It’s not that he didn’t have a good voice, but it just didn’t seem to be the appropriate tone for the book. By the end I really just wanted to get through it.

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QUANTUM REALITY

Anthony Aquirre offers a modicum of insight (enlightenment) to the concept of quantum reality.  The use of the word modicum is not to suggest Aquirre’a effort is insignificant but understanding quantum reality remains fragmentary and obscure. The title of the book is a clue to Aquirre’s insight.  To begin with, one must know the definition of koan.  A koan is “a paradoxical anecdote or riddle, used in Zen Buddhism to demonstrate the inadequacy of logical reasoning with the intent of provoking enlightenment”. 

Aquirre is a cosmologist.  He discusses the ideas of a created and expanding universe.  He refers to the science of Gallio, Newton, Schrodinger, and Einstein.  There is a past and a present, but the past can never be relived, and the present is past as soon as it becomes present.  Aquirre leaves listeners in Plato’s cave that shows only shadows of reality.

One comes away from “Cosmological Koans” with the belief that reality remains unknown.  Complete understanding of life’s truth (if there is one) rests in the future of science and mathematics, a supercomputer like a Jinn, or God.

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