Martin J. Rees
Paperback | Pages: 208 pages Rating: 3.94 | 4262 Users | 168 Reviews
Itemize Books During Just Six Numbers: The Deep Forces That Shape the Universe (The Science Masters Series)
| Original Title: | Just Six Numbers: The Deep Forces That Shape the Universe |
| ISBN: | 0465036732 (ISBN13: 9780465036738) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Series: | The Science Masters |
| Series: |
Relation To Books Just Six Numbers: The Deep Forces That Shape the Universe (The Science Masters Series)
[Original review, November 2008]This book blew me away... I hadn't been paying attention, and had missed a scientific revolution that had happened right under my nose! To cut to the chase: either someone created the Universe expressly to make it suitable for living beings, or there are lots of universes, and we just happen to be in one of the rare ones that support life. Right now, there don't seem to be many other serious alternatives.
If you have trouble believing this, get Rees's excellent book. It will change the way you think about things.
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[Postscript, December 2008]
I was just looking at Trevor's review, and thought I would update my own. Here are a couple more thoughts. First, much as I hate saying it, the creationists have a stronger position now than they've had for the last 300 years. There's something really odd about the way the physical constants are so finely tuned. Some of them need to be correct to multiple decimal places. Of course, when I say "creationists", I don't mean people who claim the world was made 10,000 years ago. I mean the faction who agree that most of science is correct, but want some Creator to have started the whole thing off.
I don't see that it's a real counter-argument that God wouldn't have anything to do for the next 13 billion years. Maybe time passes very differently for Him. Maybe He isn't really at all interested in what we're up to, and is only omnipotent and omniscient in a narrow technical sense. Suppose, as an extreme example, that our whole universe was a simulation that some student had set up as a term project in the university's quantum computer. We see 13 billion years, but from His point of view He is running us over the weekend. He's an ordinary 19 year old, He's only doing it to pass Cosmology 101, and He even copied the critical parameter settings from a friend as some students do. I don't actually see why it's inconsistent with the observed data! There could be a short story in this.
I'm sorry if religious people find the above horribly blasphemous. All I'm saying is: one explanation of the facts is that the universe was created, but we can deduce nothing at all from that about the nature of the Creator.
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[Postscript, August 2012]
I have read a good deal more cosmology since I first came across Just Six Numbers in 2006, and thought I would re-read it to see what difference this had made. I'm pleased to say that the book still comes across a fine piece of work, and if you want to get a quick introduction to cosmology I strongly recommend it. The writing is excellent.
It was published in 1999. Rees made some predictions about what might happen over the next ten years. I was interested to see how they had worked out:
Prediction 1. Mainly thanks to the upcoming WMAP satellite, we would have much better values for Ω, Λ and Q (roughly, the extent to which space is curved, the strength of Dark Energy, and the graininess of the universe). Ω would probably turn out to be 1 (flat space), and Q would be about 10^-5.
This definitely came out as he said it would. If anything, we understand the large-scale structure of the universe better than we expected.
Prediction 2. We would know what "dark matter" is made of.
Alas, we still don't. I am not even sure if we are significantly closer to finding out.
Prediction 3. We would have a solid "Theory of Everything" which unified the four forces of nature, and which would probably be based on superstring theory.
This has also failed to happen - though we have at least confirmed that the Higgs particle exists, which makes his scenarios for the very early universe a little less speculative.
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[Postscript, September 2018]
And another update:
Prediction 1. Mainly thanks to the upcoming WMAP satellite, we would have much better values for Ω, Λ and Q (roughly, the extent to which space is curved, the strength of Dark Energy, and the graininess of the universe). Ω would probably turn out to be 1 (flat space), and Q would be about 10^-5.
This has all worked out 100%.
Prediction 2. We would know what "dark matter" is made of.
We still don't know. Experiments to try and detect hypothetical dark matter particles have not produced any conclusive results. There is a decent summary of the situation as of early 2014 in the second half of Freese's The Cosmic Cocktail , but none of the optimistic predictions there have been fulfilled.
One interesting new idea has turned up following the 2016 LIGO gravitational wave results: it's just about possible that the dark matter could consist of large primordial black holes, of the kind found by LIGO. But this idea isn't very popular.
Prediction 3. We would have a solid "Theory of Everything" which unified the four forces of nature, and which would probably be based on superstring theory.
Superstring theory is not doing well. The predicted supersymmetric partners have failed to show up at the LHC. While they haven't been completely excluded by experiment, most people are now assuming that they aren't there.
Loop Quantum Gravity has however become considerably more respectable. There's a good summary of that in Rovelli's Reality is Not What It Seems .
Identify About Books Just Six Numbers: The Deep Forces That Shape the Universe (The Science Masters Series)
| Title | : | Just Six Numbers: The Deep Forces That Shape the Universe (The Science Masters Series) |
| Author | : | Martin J. Rees |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Anniversary Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 208 pages |
| Published | : | May 3rd 2001 by Basic Books (first published 1999) |
| Categories | : | Science. Nonfiction. Physics. Astronomy. Popular Science |
Rating About Books Just Six Numbers: The Deep Forces That Shape the Universe (The Science Masters Series)
Ratings: 3.94 From 4262 Users | 168 ReviewsAssess About Books Just Six Numbers: The Deep Forces That Shape the Universe (The Science Masters Series)
This is a very cute little book discussing a lot of facts about the universe as well as ways of relating them to make you wonder about why's and what-if's. Here is one example (there are so many). Gravity is a very weak force. How weak? The gravitational attraction between protons is 36 orders of magnitude weaker than the electrical forces. That's how it is and nobody knows why the ratio is exactly that. But if you start to put together a ball, the volume of the ball (and hence roughly theIf any of six numbers were slightly altered, the universe as we know it including ourselves would not exist. Small changes to any one of six numbers the strength of electrical forces, the amount of matter in the universe, antigravity, etc and everything would be different. So how did the universe become so finely tuned to support our existence and the existence of the stars? Was it Providence? A cosmic coincidence? Neither, says Martin Rees. He postulates that our universe is one of many in
Six numbers: if any was altered in a very small degree, the universe would not have permitted life to develop.For example, if gravity wasn't exactly this weak comparing to other forces in the atom, but not weaker, the universe either would have collapsed right after Big Bang, or would have expanded so fast that no stars, galaxies, planetary systems could've formed.Thus, no potential for life.Writing and readabilityRees makes his case of fine tuning with regard to life very convincing. The book
I gobbled this one up in a heartbeat. Brilliant, wonderful, insightful. I loved it. I plan on reading it again before taking it back to the library. Maybe I will get a copy for the house too. I don't have anything to add to what the author said. Bravo and thank you for letting the reader make his own conclusion or choose not to make any at that point. I was worried there for a bit that he was going to pounce an agenda on me. Nope. It looks like the author is just genuinely interested in as he
My gut? After reading this and the books on the big issues at the heart of quantum physics, it seems likely that something key is missing from our theories. Maybe some physicist trapped in covid lockdown will have a flash of boredom-triggered-brilliance and solve it...
[Original review, November 2008]This book blew me away... I hadn't been paying attention, and had missed a scientific revolution that had happened right under my nose! To cut to the chase: either someone created the Universe expressly to make it suitable for living beings, or there are lots of universes, and we just happen to be in one of the rare ones that support life. Right now, there don't seem to be many other serious alternatives. If you have trouble believing this, get Rees's excellent
Meh. That about sums up my feelings on this book.When I finally got my hands on this book I was so excited. I expected to be blown away by the 6 numbers and the perfection to which they were tuned to allow life to emerge in our universe. Instead I was bored at times, and definitely not blown away. There is a show on the History channel called 'The Universe', which at times is over the top, but in this case they have done a better job of getting the point across then Rees has. This book is
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