Review
"'Finest cosmology writer of our day.' Matt Ridley, author of Genome"
Scarlett Thomas, Independent on Sunday
Reading this book is a little like being at a party with an almost
perfect DJ.
perfect DJ.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
51 of 52 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Big questions. Brave people with even bigger answers which, even if they turn out to be wrong, illuminate vast areas of modern science. Chow takes you by the hand and leads you to the frontier of knowledge - literally, since one of his big questions is: What is the limit of what we can know? What IBM mathematician Gregory Chatin has to say about this will leave your brain reeling, but it has implications for everything from the limits of computers to the origin of human intuition, imagination and creativity. Elsewhere Chow asks: What happened before the Big Bang explosion? Where does the everyday world come from? Can life survive into the infinite future of the Universe? Why do we experience a common past, present and future when none of these concepts appear in our basic description of space and time (remarkably, it may be due to our biology rather than to physics)? And why are fridges hard to shove about?! (because empty space is "sticky"!) This is a very stimulating book which I have raved about to all my friends.
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
If you're a beginner hoping to learn about the big bang, relativity and quantum theory, then this is probably not the best book for you. A title like Brian Greene's The Fabric of the Cosmos would almost certainly offer you a better understanding of these concepts, building your understanding more gradually and methodically.
However if you already have a basic grasp of such topics and fancy a highly (and I mean highly!) speculative detour away from established theories into the realm of fringe topics such as whether we might be living in a computer simulation or where we might begin to look for a possible message from the creator of our universe, then you should find this a mildly entertaining read, even if you question some of the conclusions.
At times it risks straying into theological territory, but not in a Bible-bashing way - for example, Chown relays the proposal of one physicist that the purpose of life might be to create an omnipotent and omniscient super-intelligence. That's the kind of book this is.
It has its faults - several glaring grammatical errors towards the end, and it's also strangely repetitive in parts, making it feel somewhat disjointed. Despite that, it's hard not to find the concepts he relays fascinating. Just don't expect to learn too much from it.
However if you already have a basic grasp of such topics and fancy a highly (and I mean highly!) speculative detour away from established theories into the realm of fringe topics such as whether we might be living in a computer simulation or where we might begin to look for a possible message from the creator of our universe, then you should find this a mildly entertaining read, even if you question some of the conclusions.
At times it risks straying into theological territory, but not in a Bible-bashing way - for example, Chown relays the proposal of one physicist that the purpose of life might be to create an omnipotent and omniscient super-intelligence. That's the kind of book this is.
It has its faults - several glaring grammatical errors towards the end, and it's also strangely repetitive in parts, making it feel somewhat disjointed. Despite that, it's hard not to find the concepts he relays fascinating. Just don't expect to learn too much from it.
47 of 50 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
As soon as I took it off the shelf I was hooked. You get tucked into the pages after the heading of the first chapter. The words begin to flow and you're taken on a smooth ride into the heart of all the really interesting bits of science, the ones that have the most extreme of theories and questions. All the information is explained in true layman's terms Which is a big help to non degree level people like myself, and is broken down in quick night time session chapters, yet don't expect to sleep easy, some of the information and facts about quantum theory are somewhat upsetting and take away most, or any individual belief that we are unique and more than just lucky animals. All and all a great read for the open minded.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Mindblowing answers to some of Science's big questions
The Never-Ending Days Of Being Dead by Marcus Chown has some crossover content with Michio Kaku's Parallel Worlds which I read in January. Read more
Published 2 months ago by R. A. Davison
A real eye opener!
I'm a Physics graduate and just love this book!
It is one of the only accounts that really makes it clear that the 'Big Bang' is not really thought to be an explosion,... Read more
It is one of the only accounts that really makes it clear that the 'Big Bang' is not really thought to be an explosion,... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Interested Guy
Curates egg
Good and bad bits - some interesting chapters and some I had to skip thru when scientific detail got a bit much for my limited knowledge
Published 20 months ago by Hugh Fullerton
Discussing fundamental realities
The ideas discussed here look crucial to our understanding of space time, energy, mathematics and the relationship between these and the mind. Read more
Published 22 months ago by S. G. Raggett
Brain-Food Buffet
Don't be deceived by the cartoon on the cover. This fabulous book starts off with a gentle slope down to the water hole but soon I found myself waist-deep in mind-boggling ideas. Read more
Published 23 months ago by Mr. D. J. Aldred
Book to send you to sleep!
This is a plodding book with very little vibrancy,take it to bed and you will not need any help sleeping!!
Published on 21 Sep 2009 by M. Crane
The Never-ending Days of Being Dead
This morning I was finishing of one of the most enjoyable books I have read, that being Marcus Chown's "The never ending days of being dead"
The most interesting part of... Read more
The most interesting part of... Read more
Published on 3 Mar 2009 by Martin Huxter
Okayish
A good read but tends to make assertions rather than employ intellectual rigour to make his case. Sense he's written this to fulfil a legal obligation rather than write it as a... Read more
Published on 10 Feb 2009 by Superhatter
A bit of undecidability and unknowability anyone ?
Well, having read quite abit of the "serious literature" inspiring Marcus's narrative, I have to say that his work is a virtuoso of summarizing complex ideas. Read more
Published on 3 Feb 2009 by Fredrick S. Ware
Great fun - and deep too
I notice that the Guardian (above) called this a limousine among popular science vehicles. I heartily agree. Read more
Published on 29 Dec 2008 by Andrew Chambers
Popular Highlights
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Time goes, you say? Ah no! Alas, Time stays, we go.
Highlighted by 3 Kindle users
A detector does not measure an exterior system directly, but rather, through an act of observation, changes the state of its own system, says the Belgian physicist Sven Aerts. In the case of the eye, for instance, light falls on the cells of the retina and changes them and it is these changed cells that the brain senses, not the light itself. We think we are directly observing light but we
Highlighted by 3 Kindle users
are in fact only observing it indirectly. It is ourselves that we are observing directly. All observation is self-observation, says Aerts.
Highlighted by 3 Kindle users
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