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4.27 AVERAGE
4.27 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
mysterious
reflective
tense
fast-paced
I’ve tried checking in with cosmology over the last 20 years but always felt like I was falling behind and not understanding the implications of the current research as well as I could be. This is a very approachable, entertaining, and thoughtful book that gets into the science and philosophical questions surrounding what we do and do not know about the universe.
It's not often that heady astrophysical topics like the ultimate end of the universe are explained in a way that makes sense to me, a simple layman, but this book does just that. For something that describes the end of all things as we conceive them it manages to be funny even, but when we're discussing heat death or the false vacuum coming to an end it's best to meet these sorta things with a laugh. After all what else can you do?
dark
informative
reflective
fast-paced
challenging
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
I don't think I can fairly give this a rating because I just don't understand this type of science very well and there were a lot of terms I need to look up. I'm going to check out the physical book (I listened on audiobook) and go down some rabbit holes and maybe I'll have a better understanding of what she's talking about. I'm sure a lot of people will read it and totally get it, but I think that I would have done better with reading this rather than listening to it.
I was an arts major for a reason, guys.
I was an arts major for a reason, guys.
A few years back, I was going through a box of my old high school stuff my mom had found when she was cleaning house and thought I might want. In my 12th grade physics notebook, I found a doodle I had drawn of my physics teacher standing with a bucket labeled “physics”, the contents of which he had just thrown at a figure wearing a witch hat (me), who was dissolving into a puddle shrieking, “I’m melting!” My ability to comprehend physics hasn’t improved much in the intervening decades, but I thought I’d check out this astrophysics book anyway. It was well-written, interesting, and entertaining in all the ways that a popular science book should be, with lots of cute little sci fi references to tickle the funny bones of geek girls like me. However, I’m afraid the author didn’t dumb it down quite enough for the average layperson, as most of it went whooshing over my head like a flock of deranged quarks (I made up that flavor) flying moonwards after escaping a particle collider in Switzerland. It was definitely worth the read, but my difficulties with comprehending physics made it less rewarding for me than I wanted it to be. Those with a firmer grasp on physics will probably get a lot more out of it.
This was the first book on astrophysics that both took the layman approach AND succeeded with flying colours. I was really impressed that I finally understood lots of concepts without zoning out or wanting to fast forward to the bits that my brain can handle. The audio is really well done, the tone is light and enthusiastic, but without reducing the gravity of the whole situation of the end of everything.
challenging
informative
tense
