|
Our universe seems strangely "biophilic," or hospitable
to life. Is this happenstance, providence, or coincidence? According to cosmologist
Martin Rees, the answer depends on the answer to another question, the one posed
by Einstein's famous remark: "What interests me most is whether God could
have made the world differently." This highly engaging book explores the
fascinating consequences of the answer's being 'yes." Rees explores the notion
that our universe is just a part of a vast "multiverse," or ensemble
of universes, in which most of the other universes are lifeless. What we call
the laws of nature would then be no more than local bylaws, imposed in the aftermath
of our own Big Bang. In this scenario, our cosmic habitat would be a special,
possibly unique universe where the prevailing laws of physics allowed life to
emerge. Rees begins by exploring the nature of our solar
system and examining a range of related issues such as whether our universe is
or isn't infinite. He asks, for example: How likely is life? How credible is the
Big Bang theory? Rees then peers into the long-range cosmic future before tracing
the causal chain backward to the beginning. He concludes by trying to untangle
the paradoxical notion that our entire universe, stretching 10 billion light-years
in all directions, emerged from an infinitesimal speck. As
Rees argues, we may already have intimations of other universes. But the fate
of the multiverse concept depends on the still-unknown bedrock nature of space
and time on scales a trillion trillion times smaller than atoms, in the realm
governed by the quantum physics of gravity. Expanding our comprehension of the
cosmos, Our Cosmic Habitat will be read and enjoyed by all those -- scientists
and nonscientists alike -- who are as fascinated by the universe we inhabit as
is the author himself. Martin Rees is Royal Society
Research Professor at Cambridge, University, Astronomer Royal of Great Britain,
and author, most recently, of the bestselling Just Six Numbers: The Deep Forces
That Shape the Universe. |
