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It's some two years between Our Cosmic Habitat and Sir Martin Rees' explanation why the universe is the way it is, thanks to Just Six Numbers. Six physical constants express our universe--a universe big enough and long-lived enough to engender consciousness. If the numbers were other than they are, we wouldn't be around to know about it. Our Cosmic Habitat is a smoother read, as Rees works his explanations inwards, from the physical world towards the numbers at its heart. But Rees offers more than a revamped description. The clue to the book's real value lies in the title. Our universe is a habitat. If you want to understand how a habitat works, you have to sweep away the trivia and the accidents, the merely local conditions, and uncover the underlying rules. And it isn't easy.
Could it be that those six numbers could be very slightly different, and still give rise to a conscious universe? If, as Rees speculates, there may be many universes, spawning other universes, all the time, then maybe those six numbers of his merely reflect the rough conditions necessary for the existence of a world such as ours. If he is right, this has massive implications for the kinds of answers physics can at present offer. Sweating over the precise relations between these difficult numbers in the hope of uncovering a "unified theory" will turn out to be as futile as trying to predict the precise arrangement of a snowflake, a column of tap water, the whirl of a thumbprint.
But this, it seems, is the perennial peril of science. One moment you're attaining an objective vision of underlying processes. The next, you're asking the equivalent of why, of all the bars in all the world, she had to walk into yours... --Simon Ings
Sunday Times, January 13, 2002 - John Cornwell
Rees is to be congratulated on bringing us abreast of some of the most challenging and complex ideas in science
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First Sentence
"Whilst this planet has been cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning, forms most wonderful ... have been and are being evolved." Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
"Whilst this planet has been cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning, forms most wonderful ... have been and are being evolved." Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Local bylaws and the multiverse,
By
This review is from: Our Cosmic Habitat (Paperback)
The first nine chapters of this rather small book give us an excellent summary of our actual scientific and speculative cosmological knowledge.In the last two chapters the author explains why he believes that the history of our universe is just an episode (a particular Big Bang) in an infinite multiverse (see also Lee Smolin's 'The Life of the Cosmos'). This clearly written (a bonus) book tackles also other important items, like the risk for an encounter with a devastating asteroid, the impact of a unified theory on science, or the still more demote cosmic status of humanity - we are even not made of the dominant stuff in our universe. A very interesting read. Not to be missed.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Elegantly written science, philosophically slanted.,
By Jairus Sway "joseph1963" (Newcastle, England) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Our Cosmic Habitat (Hardcover)
Martin Rees covers all the current cosmology, explaining what has been thoroughly tested and accepted and covering a lot of speculative stuff that has a good chance of becoming accepted. (He glances off a few non-science ideas too.) He explains in a broad way, without getting into any tricky details the processes of scientific discovery, and why it is that so much should be gambled on string theories. A slight philosophical questioning slant, with nods towards ideas raised in sci-fi. Rees gives as clear an argument as any as to why we should keep searching for answers. Inspiring.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Well written introduction and overview of cosmology,
This review is from: Our Cosmic Habitat (Paperback)
Rees' book is adapted from a series of lectures he gave to a general audience at Princeton University. Although a completely different work, and somewhat updated, it effectively covers similar ground as his slightly earlier volume, Before The Beginning.
Like its predecessor it is a very readable introduction to cosmology, from someone with a thoroughly well established reputation, both as a scientist and a communicator.
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