Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3375 in Books
• Published on: 2007-09-20
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

Sunday Herald
'Chown, a scientist with a friendly prose style, investigates and clarifies the nature of the universe ... [it] fascinates.'

Guardian, January 27, 2007
A limousine among popular-science vehicles ... Superb.

Independent on Sunday, January 21, 2007
Reading this book is a little like being at a party with an almost perfect DJ.

Customer Reviews

So what?
Is the complexity of the universe the result of a four line computer program?

Will we be resurrected within a computer simulation contrived by an advanced civilisation utilising the energy made available to them as the universe approaches it's ultimate demise?

Are we already living within such a simulation?

Has a message been left for us by the creator in the background radiation of the universe?

These and other completely unverifiable musings are addressed in this book and that, for me, is one of the problems with it - all of the ideas are so out there that after a while I found myself thinking "Here's another off the wall idea that can't be verified one way or another, so what?".

Having said that, it's well written and the author is very capable when it comes to explaining some pretty complex ideas.

If you want to keep up too speed with the current ideas doing the rounds in cosmology then this book will probably interest you. If, on the other hand, you're one of these people who think cosmologists have far too much time on their hands and should get out more, then this book will probably confirm those suspicions!

Thanks for inspiring me again
I am a part-time physics student and last week finished doing my exams. So, you can imagine, I was sick to death of physics. But a friend urged me to read this book and, against my better judgment, I did. And I'm so glad I did. I couldn't put it down. It's all the fun stuff that wasn't in my course. It's reminded me of why I did physics in the first place. Thanks Mr. Chown for inspiring me again!

Entertaining but simplistic and misleading
The author clearly has a good grounding in the various scientific theories of fundamental physics, but to be honest I did not make it past chapter one as the conclusions he draws are quite ludicrous and do not stand up to the simplest of scrutiny. Firstly, he puts forward the theory of cosmic inflation as an established fact rather than what it actually is, which is simply one of the top theories currently put forward to explain how our universe got to where it is.

But then he goes on to try and establish the minimum distance you would have to travel to find your double. This is based simply on the number of permutations in which the protons which make up your body (no mention of neutrons or electrons, btw) can be arranged in a given volume of space. Where this falls down is that he does not give any thought to the probability of certain permutations arising. By this counting, one would assume that there was a very high chance of finding your double floating free in space, devoid of any context. He compounds this by postulating that your double might be close because there may be 10^20 habitable planets in the visible universe, which somehow, in his mind, actually increases the probability that a particular 1 in 10^10^28 permutation of protons will be repeated. In fact this would mean each such planet would need an average population of about 10^10^27 before a repeat of your combination of protons would be likely.

The book is entertainingly written and engaging which makes it accessible to a wide audience, which makes it all the more of a shame that Marcus is so sloppy in his reasoning and conclusions. Perhaps the later chapters are more convincing. Unfortunately, after chapter one I had lost all faith in the author and gave up on the book.