The Universe Next Door - Hardcover

Chown, Marcus

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0747234965 ISBN 13: 9780747234968

Publisher: Headline, 2002

Synopsis

Can time run backwards? Can we live forever? Could our universe have been created as a DIY experiment by superior beings in another universe? These questions may sound crazy but, like nothing else, they explore the limits of our current knowledge and highlight the key issues scientists at the cutting edge are wrestling to understand.

As Cosmology Consultant at the New Scientist, Marcus Chown often comes across ideas that leave his head spinning. In this hugely entertaining, accessible and mind-blowing book, he explores the ramifications of, as he puts it, science with the 'wow!' factor.

About this title

Review:

In his work as Cosmology Consultant for New Scientist magazine, Marcus Chown often comes across mind-blowing ideas and in The Universe Next Door he explores 12 of the most extraordinary. He delves into regions of space where time travels backwards, the possibility that the many worlds theorem implies that we can live forever and invisible mirror-matter interacting with ours only via gravity. As he points out in the foreword, such apparently crazy ideas are essential for pushing forward the frontiers of science and the concepts presented here are attempts to answer the big questions about reality, time and the origins of the universe. Why are the laws of physics so perfectly tuned that they allow atoms, stars and people to exist? Is there perhaps infinity of universes out there, all with different physical laws? Some theorists have suggested that our universe was deliberately created by vastly superior aliens, or that universes are born within the singularities of black holes and that those with physical laws like ours will reproduce themselves many times, while others will not.

It’s all well-written and thought-provoking, but there are few brand-new ideas here. If you read New Scientist or other popular cosmology books, you’ll have come across most of these concepts before, but if not, this is a good place to start. The universe is a very strange place and the more we learn about it, the stranger it becomes. Chown is a friendly guide through the weirdness. --Elizabeth Sourbut

Review:

Praise for THE MAGIC FURNACE: 'All the narrative devices you'd expect to find in a Harry Potter book are here, and they transform the story of the quest to unlock the secret of the atom into a giddy page-turner' Daily Mail, 4 August 2000

Independent `... exuberant... Chown goes beyond established science to find still stranger notions ... he offers a beguiling portrait of science as creative play' (the Independent)

'Suspense is the mark of a good storyteller, and THE MAGIC FURNACE keeps readers anxious for the next puzzle piece to fall into place ... a fascinating trip' Astronomy magazine, November 2001

About this edition

• Publisher: Headline
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0747234965
• ISBN 13: 9780747234968
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 288