Cosmic Jackpot: Why Our Universe Is Just Right for Life
by Paul Davies
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Book Summary Information
Author: Paul DaviesEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2007-04-11
ISBN: 0618592261
Number of pages: 336
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Book Reviews of Cosmic Jackpot: Why Our Universe Is Just Right for Life
Book Review: Worth Reading
Summary: 5 Stars
Dr. Paul Davies may well be the most accomplished scientist, the clearest writer and the best storyteller writing in this field today. His devotion to the scientific method coupled with the ease with which he is able to describe even the most complicated and perplexing of scientific subjects makes him a worthy successor to Carl Sagan.
In this book, he takes on what may be the biggest question of all. Why does the universe exist and why are humans in it? The book begins with a quick a course in basic physics ranging from thermodynamics right up to the current darling of the moment, M-theory. With this as a foundation he then tackles the anthropic principle, which is why is the world so ordered that humans appeared in it. Fearlessly diving in he presents the latest thinking in the field with special attention to all of the various multiple universe ideas that are now floating around. And some of them are truly bizarre, my favorite is the one were this world is really a computer simulation, a'la the Matrix. This book does indeed show some basic truths about the nature of the universe although they may not have been what they were thought to be.
For what is being shown by this prolixity of theorizing, in many cases going places that the philosophers visited long ago, is the limitation of mathematics in trying to understand reality. For the problem the mathematicians face is the same one that the philosophers faced before them. To find the answer of which they seek, the `whatever it is' that is behind the world we know, you have to have a place to start. You have to have one undeniable rock bottom fact and in a relative universe that is the one thing you do not have. For it must be realized that all of these theories have their origin in the same place, the General Theory of Relativity. Yet using mathematics alone it is not possible to decide which of these ideas are true and which are not. But you say, all of this has to be tempered with experimental evidence, which is true enough. However, when you do this you are plunged into the philosophical problem of what reality is. No, when it comes to absolute certainty of knowledge, they are no further along than the philosophers are.
Davies, or any scientist, does not look at it this way of course. They are unwavering in their belief in the rightness of their paradigm. This never varies throughout the whole of his discourse where the standard model of physics is presented as though it is established fact. It is true that he can cite experimental evidence in his support but it is not quite as solid as you are led to believe. For example, you would never know by reading the discussion of dark matter and dark energy that there are some, quite eminent, scientists that question whether they even exist at all. Still when all is said and done this book is just a plain good read. Whether one agrees with what he is saying or not you are forced to think and any book that does that is always worth reading.
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