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Our Cosmic Habitat (Paperback)

by Martin Rees (Author) "Whilst this planet has been cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning, forms most wonderful ... have been..." (more)
4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
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Product details

  • Paperback: 240 pages
  • Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson; 1st edition (10 Jan 2002)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0297829017
  • ISBN-13: 978-0297829010
  • Product Dimensions: 19.8 x 14 x 2.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 408,484 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review

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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"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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Customer Reviews

3 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.7 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Local bylaws and the multiverse, 20 Oct 2005
By Luc REYNAERT (Beernem, Belgium) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
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.

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Elegantly written science, philosophically slanted., 23 Jun 2007
By Jairus Sway "joseph1963" (Newcastle, England) - See all my reviews
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.
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4 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Good concepts and ideas, but not for the light hearted, 17 Feb 2002
The book covers many difficult to understand concepts and ideas about our universe. Discusses many topics in depth such as dark matter and multiverses. Perfect book to send the reader off to the land of nod dreaming of the possibilities, sometimes with book in hand.
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