The Universe for dummies

RandomPillars wrote: To be honest, I actually don't think I have the concentration skills, education or intelligence needed to fully understand what these people waffle on about. Sometimes they produce an analogy that I can get to grips with but then they will follow it up with something else which I think completely contradicts what they just explained, so Bubbles comes back in, smashing his way through the dull bits of grey matter in my skull that are destined never to be used to their fullest potential.

This stuff is complicated, and takes quite a bit of mathematics to get to grips with. Some things can be simplified down with analogies, but they never capture everything, and more often than not lead to contradictions if you follow them through! They are all 'lies to children'. So even if there was a dummies quide it won't help, if you don't understand it you are still in the same position, and if you did understand, well, you didn't

What you need to do to try and get a better understanding is get gradually more scary books. Unfortunately this will lead to the situation you describe of going slightly insane

While not a 'for dummies' book, Kip Thorne's 'Black Holes and Time Warps' covers the topic very well. And a good book on relativity would have to be Einsteins own 'Relativity, The Special and the General Theory'.

Thank you,

Yes, I will get that book by kip Thorne. I do have quite a few books that I have to get through (quantum mechanics and parallel universes) but I know I need to really start at the beginning and work my way up. All the books I've read are introductory into their specific field but I really need to get down to the basics, understanding the fundamentals.

At least I have a big interest in this stuff so sticking with it shouldn't be a problem. That's at least part of the battle, I'm sure. Tell you what: when I'm published in Nature, I'll post the link in this thread. Then, you'll all finally know what is dark energy, what happened before the Big Bang and why we Liverpool supporters are destined to remain in endless premiershipless sorrow.

Sean