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4.27 AVERAGE
4.27 AVERAGE
Big chill and heat death, big rip, bubble nucleation, bounce, some of the fates that may await our universe in the far future. The universe could end in a slow freeze and fade out, or have space rip everything apart down to the Planck scale, transition out of a false vacuum to an exotic state not compatible with us, bounce in a crunch, and a new big bang. The methods of death are many, pick your poison.
informative
medium-paced
adventurous
funny
informative
lighthearted
mysterious
medium-paced
I wonder if the author anticipated this book coming out at a time when vacuum decay sounds like one of the better options to close out the year?
I struggled with this book a bit, probably because I just don't have a strong enough physics background. It's not really a book for people who last took physics in high school! I'm a big fan of Dr. Mack on Twitter, but sadly it seems that my poor biologist brain can only handle astrophysics in tweet-sized chunks. That said it's well written and structured, and the parts of it that I (think I) understood were very interesting. I'll most likely be passing it on to someone who'll be able to get much more out of it than I could!
3/5 for my enjoyment of the book, but 4/5 rating because that's hardly the author's fault
I struggled with this book a bit, probably because I just don't have a strong enough physics background. It's not really a book for people who last took physics in high school! I'm a big fan of Dr. Mack on Twitter, but sadly it seems that my poor biologist brain can only handle astrophysics in tweet-sized chunks. That said it's well written and structured, and the parts of it that I (think I) understood were very interesting. I'll most likely be passing it on to someone who'll be able to get much more out of it than I could!
3/5 for my enjoyment of the book, but 4/5 rating because that's hardly the author's fault
A clear story showing different hypothesis about how the universe may end. Well-written and clear, my only objection is that some of the puns are a bit cringy. Highly recommended.
жить не могу без книг про астрономию. от масштабов и безумных теорий кружится голова, бегут мурашки по всему телу, отвисает челюсть и выскакивают из орбит глаза, приходится на ощупь их потом собирать каждый раз. прочитав что-то подобное временно теряю желание читать о чем угодно еще: какое вообще значение имеет наша пустячковая земная возня, когда где-то там сталкиваются галактики и взрываются звезды? книга Кэти Мак заряжена этим ощущением благоговения по полной. перед загадочной физической реальностью, в которой мы оказались, перед тайнами, с которыми она не желает расставаться. к сожалению конкретно по теме книги Кэти скорее разводит руками: все теории будущего вселенной, которые у нас есть, глубоко спекулятивны и похожи скорее на научную фантастику. с другой стороны даже научная фантастика звучит устрашающе, когда о ней говорит именитый ученый.
informative
medium-paced
You know how, around the age of 8-10, you have an existential crisis because you learn that the Sun and the Earth will disappear in a few billion years? Well... This book is about how the entire universe (as we know it) might end, many many years into the future. The possibilities range from slow, sad, and depressing heat death, to the turbulent and more exciting "big crunch", to a bizarre collapse on the subatomic level. Short, fun to read, and has a bit of humor in it too.
Absolutely incredible. Katie Mack does an impeccable job of distilling the core of the topics into understandable chunks, while using great analogies to help the layman wrap their head around more complicated topics.
This was utterly fascinating, and I hope a lot of people give it a shot.
This was utterly fascinating, and I hope a lot of people give it a shot.
Science is not a set of eternally unmoving facts. It is worthwhile to keep in touch with the latest developments. Mack provides a useful update to the layperson in understandable forms. I was aware of two possible endings to the universe – as it turns out, a few more have been speculated.
Mack handles conceptual matters well. There were several times where she did have to admit that it is hard to explain, but that the maths made sense. I am willing to accept that is pretty much an inescapable issue – after all, why have numbers if words could do it all? Overall, there were limited portions where I was unable to follow – a credit to her rather than me. I still need to find a way to get my head around the multi-dimensional branes though.
Mack is also someone who enjoys a sense of humour, but uses her own sparingly, sprinkling it into the pages. The tone overall is casual, but because the examples do have to be relatively simple, I consider it appropriate to the book. Despite this, I did find myself awed by some incredibly intelligent theorising though – how they measure astronomical distances via a white dwarf supernova, for example.
If I had to choose, I would say go with Simon Singh’s Big Bang if you are a neophyte. This book could be very well be your next choice though.
Mack handles conceptual matters well. There were several times where she did have to admit that it is hard to explain, but that the maths made sense. I am willing to accept that is pretty much an inescapable issue – after all, why have numbers if words could do it all? Overall, there were limited portions where I was unable to follow – a credit to her rather than me. I still need to find a way to get my head around the multi-dimensional branes though.
Mack is also someone who enjoys a sense of humour, but uses her own sparingly, sprinkling it into the pages. The tone overall is casual, but because the examples do have to be relatively simple, I consider it appropriate to the book. Despite this, I did find myself awed by some incredibly intelligent theorising though – how they measure astronomical distances via a white dwarf supernova, for example.
If I had to choose, I would say go with Simon Singh’s Big Bang if you are a neophyte. This book could be very well be your next choice though.
I must start this review with a confession: I failed big time in Physics, Mathematics and Chemistry in my first year of high school. I always had trouble following classes when the teacher starts it by introducing formulas, but not explaining their context, how scientists came to them, what are their purposes, and so on.
However, I've always had a huge curiosity about issues concerning the universe, and for that reason, cosmology as well. And despite my failure to understand many concepts concerning those branches of science, my curiosity is my guide into the unknown, let's put it like that hahaha
Not to mention that Katie Mack writes with such ease and clarity, one hardly has trouble understanding cosmologic concepts. I'm always glad for such souls like hers that can translate hard issues into clear information.
She starts this interesting book talking about the beginning of everything, focusing primarily on the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB), the only picture ever so far of our baby universe when it was 380.000 years old, the best available evidence for the Big Bang theory.
From then on, Mack offers us the best scenarios (best scenarios?) for the end of everything:
- heat death, the most probable if the cosmological constant doesn't change at all; it is like a long and smooth journey till the end, as it might take trillions of years until the universe becomes completely dark;
- big crunch, in which the expansion of the universe eventually reverses and it recollapses. If it happens, it will take circa 100 billion years from now.
- big rip, in which all the matter of the universe reaches a point that the universe tears apart the fabric of spacetime. Thus, gravity breaks and everything explodes;
- vacuum decay, the one that is the hardest to explain, but easy to understand. Yet, it is the most comforting one, because if it happens, and it can happen at any moment, it will be painless, you won't see it coming.
In the epilogue, Mack asks a group of scientists about their feelings concerning these scenarios and, ultimately, the end of everything and it comes with no surprise many feel pretty depressed, but others feel at ease. In general, it is not about the end of everything that matters to most of them, but the possibility that whatever we do or achieve, it will just end with everything one day, and everything accomplished by the human spirit will perish.
Regardless one of these scenarios may happen at any moment, painless, with no previous warning, is comforting. The other scenarios may happen within the scope of a hundred billion years to trillions of years, and even then, in the future, we may have other much more potent machinery to search deeper into the universe and bring data we may not be able to achieve right now, or that we may have, but we are unable to reach conclusions in respect of our current limitations in Physics and Maths. Thus, other scenarios and possibilities may show up, who knows.
In the end, we might always have in mind that we are only a blue little dot in a universe that is so immense we only have an idea of how enormous it is, as what we know as the universe is only the visible part of it. Thus, it is not only our heritage that will be at risk in the future far from what we can hardly imagine but also all the other cosmic species that may also exist. And even thus, we have so much to offer, as all the researches we learn along with this book presents us, there is so much goodness in the world, but there is also too much greed and hate, our history is pervaded by wars and slavery and horror from one human to another, not to mention what we do to nature. With all that in mind, one thinks, at least I think that by the way we are heading into the future, we as species will have at least a chance to come close to the moment our Sun will explode and become a White Dwarf.
Life's the moment we live, what we learn, the ones we love, what we achieve along with it, etc., thus, regardless I love to read how everything might end, I don't care much about it. We're given this opportunity to be here and live. So, let's do our best while we can.
However, I've always had a huge curiosity about issues concerning the universe, and for that reason, cosmology as well. And despite my failure to understand many concepts concerning those branches of science, my curiosity is my guide into the unknown, let's put it like that hahaha
Not to mention that Katie Mack writes with such ease and clarity, one hardly has trouble understanding cosmologic concepts. I'm always glad for such souls like hers that can translate hard issues into clear information.
She starts this interesting book talking about the beginning of everything, focusing primarily on the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB), the only picture ever so far of our baby universe when it was 380.000 years old, the best available evidence for the Big Bang theory.
From then on, Mack offers us the best scenarios (best scenarios?) for the end of everything:
- heat death, the most probable if the cosmological constant doesn't change at all; it is like a long and smooth journey till the end, as it might take trillions of years until the universe becomes completely dark;
- big crunch, in which the expansion of the universe eventually reverses and it recollapses. If it happens, it will take circa 100 billion years from now.
- big rip, in which all the matter of the universe reaches a point that the universe tears apart the fabric of spacetime. Thus, gravity breaks and everything explodes;
- vacuum decay, the one that is the hardest to explain, but easy to understand. Yet, it is the most comforting one, because if it happens, and it can happen at any moment, it will be painless, you won't see it coming.
In the epilogue, Mack asks a group of scientists about their feelings concerning these scenarios and, ultimately, the end of everything and it comes with no surprise many feel pretty depressed, but others feel at ease. In general, it is not about the end of everything that matters to most of them, but the possibility that whatever we do or achieve, it will just end with everything one day, and everything accomplished by the human spirit will perish.
Regardless one of these scenarios may happen at any moment, painless, with no previous warning, is comforting. The other scenarios may happen within the scope of a hundred billion years to trillions of years, and even then, in the future, we may have other much more potent machinery to search deeper into the universe and bring data we may not be able to achieve right now, or that we may have, but we are unable to reach conclusions in respect of our current limitations in Physics and Maths. Thus, other scenarios and possibilities may show up, who knows.
In the end, we might always have in mind that we are only a blue little dot in a universe that is so immense we only have an idea of how enormous it is, as what we know as the universe is only the visible part of it. Thus, it is not only our heritage that will be at risk in the future far from what we can hardly imagine but also all the other cosmic species that may also exist. And even thus, we have so much to offer, as all the researches we learn along with this book presents us, there is so much goodness in the world, but there is also too much greed and hate, our history is pervaded by wars and slavery and horror from one human to another, not to mention what we do to nature. With all that in mind, one thinks, at least I think that by the way we are heading into the future, we as species will have at least a chance to come close to the moment our Sun will explode and become a White Dwarf.
Life's the moment we live, what we learn, the ones we love, what we achieve along with it, etc., thus, regardless I love to read how everything might end, I don't care much about it. We're given this opportunity to be here and live. So, let's do our best while we can.