Just Six Numbers (SCIENCE MASTERS) - Softcover

Rees, Sir Martin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 178022690X ISBN 13: 9781780226903

Publisher: W&N, 2015

Synopsis

How did a single genesis event create billions of galaxies, black holes, stars and planets? How did atoms assemble - here on Earth, and perhaps on other worlds - into living beings intricate enough to ponder their origins?. This book describes the recent avalanche of discoveries about the universe's fundamental laws, and the deep connections that exist between stars and atoms - the cosmos and the microscopic world. Just six numbers, imprinted in the big bang, determine the essence of our world, and this book devotes one chapter to explaining each. A fantastic book for those wanting to dive into the universe and learn more about the forces that shape it. This paperback book has 208 pages and measures

About this title

Review

Just six numbers govern the shape, size and texture of our universe. If their values were only fractionally different, we would not exist; nor, in many cases, would matter have had a chance to form. If the numbers that govern our universe were elegant--1, say, or Pi, or the Golden Mean--we would simply shrug and say that the universe was an elegant mathematical puzzle. But the numbers Martin Rees discusses are far from tidy. Was the universe "tweaked" or is it one of many universes, all run by slightly different but equally messy, rules?

This is familiar ground, though rarely so comprehensively explored. What makes Rees's book exceptional is his conviction that cosmology is as materialistic and as conceptually simple as any of the earth sciences. Indeed, "cosmology is simpler in one important respect: once the starting point is specified, the outcome is in broad terms predictable. All large patches of the universe that start off the same way end up statistically similar. In contrast, if the Earth's history were re-run, it could end up with a quite different biosphere."

Rees demonstrates how the cosmos is full of "fossils" from which we can deduce how our universe developed, as surely as we infer the Earth's past from the relics found in sedimentary rocks. Rees's theme is nothing less than the colossal richness of the universe. It is an ambitious book, if anything, it deserves to be longer. --Simon Ings

Review

His prose is as sharp as his logic and he provides the reader with endless food for thought - EVENING STANDARD This book is a small miracle of concise explanation and offers even the most scientifically challenged reader a new perspective on our universe - SUNDAY TIMES

Edition details

• Publisher: W&N
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 178022690X
• ISBN 13: 9781780226903
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 208