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Last Three Minutes
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Product Description
How will the universe end? And what are the implications for mankind? In this free ranging account, Paul Davies surveys the latest predictionsabout the ultimate fate of the universe and outlines the many current theories - or is it possible that the "last three minutes" will never come?
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I'm amazed I'm the first person to review this book - although short I believe it is one of Paul Davies best. This is not a typical Davies book explaining implications of new scientific discoveries, it is a speculative account on the ultimate death of the Universe, with three scenarios explored - this book is a wonder masterpiece, and gives reason to hope that Davies becomes a Carl Sagan-esque writer - we still need one.
A truly wonderful book - in its literal sense, discussing the fate of the sun (OK, done before but not as poetically as this) and the ultimate nightfall - "the era of light will be over forever", and the alarming violence of the crunch scenario - "The Universe now has an elegant but sinister simplicity. It has but seconds to live.." Concepts discussed elsewhere many times but NEVER EVER EVER made as spine-tingling as this.
Come on, more people should read this book. Just read it, please, you'll love it.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
It is safe to say that I grew up reading Paul Davies; my first real introduction to physical sciences such as astronomy and physic was the television series 'Cosmos'; that inspired me to purchase the companion text, which further inspired me to join the Astronomy Book Club two dozen years ago. One of the first books offered, and the first book I received from them, was Paul Davies' 'Other Worlds' -- from then on, I was hooked. I have nearly a dozen books by Paul Davies, all on topics of theoretical physics, astrophysics and cosmology -- he is consistently readable, entertaining and educating with the same style that compels the reader to want more (which he then provides).
It was not surprising to me to see his name on the Science Masters Series. The series has basic introductions to many of the key issues in science today -- evolution, origins of life, cognitive science, time, computer science, and more. Each volume is relatively short -- 'The Last Three Minutes' has a mere 150 pages of text that is not too dense, sparing technically and mathematically without losing much conceptually.
The issue of the end of the universe is one of the 'hot spots' of astrophysics and cosmology, and so there are elements of this book that are already a bit out of date, despite being less than a decade old. However, given the speculative nature of many 'discoveries' in this field, it is impossible to say if anything is truly out of date or false at the present time.
Davies explores the end of the universe by setting the stage -- drawing from current thinking about the origins of the universe, in fact one of the options for conjecture, in a closed universe system, would be that the last three minutes would resemble quite closely the first three minutes. Davies looks at the various processes -- stellar evolution and decay, gravitational issues, overall radiation depletion, energy-fuel consumption -- and draws these together for the various theories about the end of the universe.
Davies shows the ideas of the closed/collapsing universe (a view not widely held today) and of the infinitely expanding universe (the current reigning theory), giving ideas about the variables required to tip the scales in one direction or the other. Even with an infinitely expanding universe, however, all is not necessarily well with the world -- the universe runs the risk (in the future so distant there is no realistic way of expressing it in terms of time we know) of becoming a dark, deep freeze with no activity left, and all matter becoming inert and inactive in every respect.
Davies speculates on what this means for the survival of humanity and human history -- how can information be preserved? How can our species go on in the face of this? Such speculation is pure conjecture; the time distances are so far removed that nothing we devise will likely come close to resembling an actual answer to this. However, it is interesting as a mental exercise, and leads the reader hopefully to further reading.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
17 reviews
22 of 23 people found the following review helpful
Fire or ice?
29 Jan 2004
Format:Paperback
It is safe to say that I grew up reading Paul Davies; my first real introduction to physical sciences such as astronomy and physic was the television series 'Cosmos'; that inspired me to purchase the companion text, which further inspired me to join the Astronomy Book Club two dozen years ago. One of the first books offered, and the first book I received from them, was Paul Davies' 'Other Worlds' -- from then on, I was hooked. I have nearly a dozen books by Paul Davies, all on topics of theoretical physics, astrophysics and cosmology -- he is consistently readable, entertaining and educating with the same style that compels the reader to want more (which he then provides).
It was not surprising to me to see his name on the Science Masters Series. The series has basic introductions to many of the key issues in science today -- evolution, origins of life, cognitive science, time, computer science, and more. Each volume is relatively short -- 'The Last Three Minutes' has a mere 150 pages of text that is not too dense, sparing technically and mathematically without losing much conceptually.
The issue of the end of the universe is one of the 'hot spots' of astrophysics and cosmology, and so there are elements of this book that are already a bit out of date, despite being less than a decade old. However, given the speculative nature of many 'discoveries' in this field, it is impossible to say if anything is truly out of date or false at the present time.
Davies explores the end of the universe by setting the stage -- drawing from current thinking about the origins of the universe, in fact one of the options for conjecture, in a closed universe system, would be that the last three minutes would resemble quite closely the first three minutes. Davies looks at the various processes -- stellar evolution and decay, gravitational issues, overall radiation depletion, energy-fuel consumption -- and draws these together for the various theories about the end of the universe.
Davies shows the ideas of the closed/collapsing universe (a view not widely held today) and of the infinitely expanding universe (the current reigning theory), giving ideas about the variables required to tip the scales in one direction or the other. Even with an infinitely expanding universe, however, all is not necessarily well with the world -- the universe runs the risk (in the future so distant there is no realistic way of expressing it in terms of time we know) of becoming a dark, deep freeze with no activity left, and all matter becoming inert and inactive in every respect.
Davies speculates on what this means for the survival of humanity and human history -- how can information be preserved? How can our species go on in the face of this? Such speculation is pure conjecture; the time distances are so far removed that nothing we devise will likely come close to resembling an actual answer to this. However, it is interesting as a mental exercise, and leads the reader hopefully to further reading.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Excellent conjectures, but partly out-of-date.
31 Dec 2002
Format:Paperback
Paul Davies gives us brilliant speculative descriptions of different possibilities of the end of the universe. But as one of the former reviewers states, the latest scientific data indicate that the universe will continue to expand forever. So, part of this book is obsolete.
I believe that the author is also too optimistic about the fate of mankind in the universe after the dying of the sun. If mankind doesn't commit suicide, he predicts not less than a colonization of the entire Milky Way.
As always with Paul Davies, the different stories are told in a clear and easily comprehensible vocabulary. This book is written in a swinging style and is as fascinating as a dazzling thriller.
A very interesting and stimulative read.
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
A bit dry in the middle..
3 Sep 2004
Format:Paperback
The book starts with what I might consider a fake-out: Davies starts by recounting a situation where some asteroid has been found to be on a collision course with Earth and the final minutes in our existence considering that we know we're going to be hit by a "global killer". While this is interesting, it's a bit of fiction. We were scared for a bit that later this century we would be hit by something heading our direction, but it was found to be missing us by just a little bit later. After considering the possibilities and probabilities of these happening for some pages, he notes that even if we do die this way, it's not exactly the last three minutes of the <em>universe</em>, just life on earth. Going on, he discusses the possibility of heat death, seemingly unavoidable by the second law of thermodynamics and something which depressed scientists to no end after they found it out. He also covers the possibility that the universe may stop expanding and start contracting at some point in the future.
Davies seems to work very hard to make the material not as dry as a AA member at a monastery by connecting most of the theory to what would actually happen, assuming that human life exists at that point. Unfortunately, the evaporating power of the material seems to take over, and I couldn't really get through this book all the way without forcing myself through long sections on black holes that I really didn't care much about. After the long discussion of black holes and how we could possibly get energy out of them stops, Davies got to the meat of what I was actually looking for: heat death or contracting universe. The last third of the book was actually much easier to read than the middle and much more intersting than most of the rest. Contracting and "Bouncing back" universes are discussed along with an actually interesting tangent about artifically creating universes by tricks with false vacuum. One other thing I really like about this book - Davies seems to go out of his way to make sure you know where to look up more information about the situations he talks about - even without resorting to looking at the notes in the back.
The book is actually better than many I could have read on the subject, and did increase my knowledge of the possibilities for the ultimate fate of the universe fairly extensively. It definitely gets my recommendation for geeky reading over the summer, at least if you can get through to the really interesting parts. At 176 pages, it is actually more reading than it looks like at a paltry paperbook size. If it weren't for the dry section in the middle, it wouldn't be B grade material.
Davies seems to work very hard to make the material not as dry as a AA member at a monastery by connecting most of the theory to what would actually happen, assuming that human life exists at that point. Unfortunately, the evaporating power of the material seems to take over, and I couldn't really get through this book all the way without forcing myself through long sections on black holes that I really didn't care much about. After the long discussion of black holes and how we could possibly get energy out of them stops, Davies got to the meat of what I was actually looking for: heat death or contracting universe. The last third of the book was actually much easier to read than the middle and much more intersting than most of the rest. Contracting and "Bouncing back" universes are discussed along with an actually interesting tangent about artifically creating universes by tricks with false vacuum. One other thing I really like about this book - Davies seems to go out of his way to make sure you know where to look up more information about the situations he talks about - even without resorting to looking at the notes in the back.
The book is actually better than many I could have read on the subject, and did increase my knowledge of the possibilities for the ultimate fate of the universe fairly extensively. It definitely gets my recommendation for geeky reading over the summer, at least if you can get through to the really interesting parts. At 176 pages, it is actually more reading than it looks like at a paltry paperbook size. If it weren't for the dry section in the middle, it wouldn't be B grade material.
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