the end of everything astrophysically speaking book review

I work in an experimental world that is predominantly governed by Newtonian physics – and I quite like it there.

I am a physicist but in a completely different field from cosmology or particle physics. The author also occasionally gets VERY EXCITED (yes, all in caps) – it’s quite infectious. Mack’s book is informative, occasionally wry, often entertaining and sometimes headache-inducing (in the best way). Granted, it won’t help you set aside your more immediate concerns about things you can actually do something about, but sometimes it can be useful to take a step back and remember that, across the vast swathe of space and time, you are an entirely insignificant blip. Yes, it is.ĭr Katie Mack is a prominent voice on science Twitter and a theoretical cosmologist, whose book describes the various scenarios for the end of…well, Everything. But against this backdrop, while some of us feel continuously gaslit by the virus deniers, is it really the best time to read a book titled The End of Everything? Well, yes. Fortunately, this is a small population, although one that happens to have a loud voice. Irrationality is apparently on the rise, with anti-maskers claiming that the mesh size of homemade masks allows the free passage of virus particles while simultaneously preventing us from expelling carbon dioxide or inhaling sufficient oxygen. (Aug.It’s a strange old world at the moment, isn’t it? With a global pandemic hanging over our heads, people are acting strangely. Despite the seemingly frightening topic, Mack’s endlessly entertaining survey is infused with a palpable love of her subject, and will transmit to readers the same joy she finds in exploring the wide and fascinating universe. (In this eventuality, Mack is careful to assure readers, the process will be painless and instantaneous.) In outlining the reasoning behind each theory, she also acknowledges opposing arguments and provides context for how astrophysicists found the supporting data. In the currently most favored theory, it will be the victim of entropy, a long, cold demise paradoxically named “heat death,” and in another scenario, which could happen at any moment, the all-pervading Higgs energy field will become unstable. As to how the end might occur, Mack reveals a surprising number of competing theories, including that the mysterious dark energy will rip the cosmos apart, or, conversely, that the universe will collapse in on itself. Excelling at providing just enough scientific detail, Mack sets the scene with an exceptionally lucid history of the universe from the big bang to the present. Mack, a theoretical astrophysicist who has written for Scientific American and Cosmos, debuts with a fascinating tour of the cosmic forces-quantum vacuums, dark matter, dark energy, entropy, and gravitation among them-that may conspire to end the universe.

The end of everything astrophysically speaking book review