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How was it that a single "genesis event" could create
billions of galaxies, black holes, stars and planets? How did atoms assemble --
here on Earth, and perhaps on other worlds -- into living beings that were intricate
enough to ponder their own origins and purpose? What are the fundamental laws
that govern our universe? This book introduces to a general readership for the
first time new discoveries about, and remarkable insights into, these fundamental
questions. There are profound connections between stars
and atoms. In this accessible and highly original book, Martin Rees demonstrates
how it is that just six numbers, imprinted in the "big bang" determine
the essential features of the physical cosmos. Moreover, cosmic evolution is astonishingly
sensitive to the values of these numbers. If any one of them were "untuned,"
there could be no stars and no life. This realization offers a radically new perspective
on the universe and our place in it, and on the nature of physical laws.
Written by one of the most brilliant and visionary living cosmologists,
Just Six Numbers is indispensable reading for anyone who seeks to understand
the deep forces that shape, quite simply, everything. Sir
Martin Rees is an international leader in cosmology. He is Royal Society Research
Professor at Cambridge University, and holds the title of Astronomer Royal. He
is a member of the Royal Society, the United States' National Academy of Sciences,
the Russian Academy of Sciences and a number of other foreign academies. Together
with his many collaborators in the United Kingdom, and at leading centers in the
United States, he has contributed many key ideas on black holes, galaxy formation
and high energy astrophysics. He is a former President of the British Association
for the Advancement of Science, and has always been mindful of the broader implications
of his work. He has lectured and written extensively for general audiences. His
most recent books are Gravity's Fatal Attraction: Black Holes in the Universe
(with Mitchell Begelman) and Before the Beginning: Our Universe and Others.
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