Product Description

Our planet may be insignificant on a cosmic scale, but the evolution of intelligent life here makes it unusual, it is likely to be unique in our galaxy. Yet we may be on the verge of destroying int, of destroying ourselves - over the next century the future of life in the cosmos could be either jeopardised - of safeguarded for perpetuity.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #104965 in Books
• Published on: 2004-09-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Just when you've stopped worrying, along comes Sir Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal, with teeming armies of deadly viruses, nanobots, and armed fanatics in Our Final Century.

Beyond the hazards most of us know about--smallpox, terrorists, global warming--Rees introduces the new threats of the 21st century and the unholy political and scientific alliances that have made them possible. He spells out doomsday scenarios for cosmic collisions, high-energy experiments gone wrong, and self-replicating machines that steadily devour the biosphere. If we can avoid driving ourselves to extinction, he writes, a glorious future awaits; if not, our devices may very well destroy the universe.

What happens here on Earth, in this century, could conceivably make the difference between a near eternity filled with ever more complex and subtle forms of life and one filled with nothing but base matter.

For many technological debacles, Rees places much of the blame squarely on the shoulders of the scientists who participate in perfecting environmental destruction, biological menaces, and ever-more powerful weapons. So is there any hope for humanity? Rees is vaguely optimistic on this point, offering solutions that would require a level of worldwide cooperation humans have yet to exhibit. If the daily news isn't enough to make you want to crawl under a rock, this book will do the trick. --Therese Littleton

Review
"'It matters that one should understand the provenance of this important and disturbing book. It is not another futurological diatribe saying that the end is nigh, but a lucid, calm, profoundly well-informed work by a distinguished scientist, whose humanity - evidenced by a serious ethical commitment and a quiet sense of humour- balances the dispassionate logic with which he surveys his subject: the multitude of threats facing humanity in the twenty-first century from error and terror in the nuclear, biological and environmental spheres.' Literary Review"

The Observer
" Rees writes with clarity and pace so that it becomes impossible not to jog along with his gloomy prognostications. "

Customer Reviews

Interesting, but not as in depth as it could have been
Being an astronomer gives you a different perspective to life on Earth to the rest of us, as Martin Rees acknowledges in this book. While the rest of us spend our lives surrounded by life, astronomers spend their time staring into and thinking about vast expanses of lifeless nothing, watching stars blow up and seeing the evidence scattered all around us that shows how the Universe just doesn't look to receptive to life in general. We are just a small blue speck in the vast scheme of things, and specks get blown away all too easily.

It's why he's probably better placed than most to write a book like this, looking at the various ways we could wipe ourselves out over the next hundred years, and what steps we could take to increase the chances of our survival. He looks at a variety of scenarios, from 'bioerror and bioterror' through nanotechnology gone wrong to bizarre possibilities in advanced physics experiments that might not just destroy Earth, but could go on to destroy the entire universe - and it would all happen so quickly that we'd never know about it.

Rees is clearly and expert on his subject, and isn't just a mad prophet in the desert calling down woe on the works of mankind. He wants us to survive, wants us to be aware of the risks we face and what we can do to avoid them or lessen the risk. He's careful to end the book on notes of hope rather than despair, like a Nick Ross on a cosmic scale telling us not to have nightmares about the risk of our entire existence being stolen from us in the night.

However, it's not the book it should be, principally because it's too short, often reading as though it's either a precis of a longer and more detailed work or that Rees' editor was convinced by some of his earlier arguments and pressured him to finish the book before Armageddon overcame us all. Or, it may be simply to attract an audience for the book that might be put off by a larger and more complex work, which is a shame as some of his arguments don't carry the weight they could - for instance, there's little discussion of the risk of nuclear conflct beyond terrorism in the next century - if they were at greater length. One also wonders why Rees chose to devote so much space to the so-called Doomsday Argument when its philosophically rather weak (the most glaring flaw I spotted is that it could have been made at just about any time in the last several thousand years to 'prove' we would be extinct 'soon') when other areas are skirted over, but perhaps that's merely personal choice.

However, that doesn't stop this from being a generally interesting and informative book that's well worth reading, though one will have to resort to the extensive bibliography to get the real depth that would make the book a true classic.

Captivating
Martin Rees discusses a large variety of subjects in Our Final Century; everything that could wipe mankind of the face of the Earth, and that's an awful lot. Taking up such a subject cannot lead to an in-depth description of details. But Rees has succeeded wonderfully in writing a book that informs the general reader about everything that could happen, to what extent we can expect it to happen, and the possible actions we should take to prevent it from happening.

Our Final Century is written in a pleasant, informal style. Rees occasionally shares his experiences and opinions, but in a modest way, without being pushy or pedantic. From beginning to end, this book does not cease to interest, succeeding in both amusing and alarming the reader.

A scientist's look at the end of the world
Interesting book, which would have been great with a slightly tighter focus. Sir Martin Rees tries to warn us that with ever-faster technological progress, the odds of a truly catastrophic mishap - either by accident or design - are going to be significant over the next century. He outlines 'familiar' dangers such as nuclear weapons, genetically engineered viruses, environmental hazards and includes more futuristic ideas about nanotechnology running amok and artificial hyperintelligences taking over.

Truly an interesting subject, and a good book, but unfortunately the ending maybe rambles off into a fairly generic speculation of humanity's potential future, should we succeed in not wiping ourselves out. The book takes a reasonably apolitical slant, which I think is a shame but maybe justified as the author is, after all, a scientist.

There are interesting thoughts on whether we should seek to ban certain lines of research on the grounds that the research itself is too dangerous, compared to the benefits, or that it might lead to potentially dangerous uses. There's a very interesting chapter on the philosophical, probabilistic Doomsday theories.

All in all, a good and quick read on an interesting, and unfortunately quite timely, subject.