E-Book Overview
This is a rather balanced account about the stable or expanding universe or multiverse issue. Rees is the Royal Astronomer of England or something so he is a bit cautious about cosmological speculations, which is, i think, a good thing. It's upsetting when scientists go rambling all over the place about matters about which they have zero information. I thoroughly enjoyed his explanations about dark matter, the inflationary universe, gravity, and the mechanism of converting hydrogen to helium and deuterium. I had been reading about the importance of that but until Rees's explanation i didn't know why it was important or how it happened. In the end it would seem that we are almost unbelievably fortunate to be alive in This Universe. And i think that is a good message, "be thankful for the life you have, even if you don't understand it."
E-Book Content
M A R T I N REES
JUST S I X N U M B E R S
The Deep Forces That Shape the Universe
A Member of the Perseus Books Group
First published in 1999 in Great Britain By Weidenfeld & Nicolson Copyright O 2000 by Martin Rees Published by Basic Books, A Member of the Perseus Books Group All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address Basic Books, 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022-5299 Typeset at The Spartan Press Ltd, Lymington, Hants A CIP catalog record for this book is available &om the Library of Congress ISBN 0-465-03672-4
CONTENTS
............................................................................................
List of Illustrations Preface Acknowledgements
vii ix xi
1. Thecosmosandthemicroworld 2.
Our cosmic habitat I: planets, stars and life
3.
The large number ?V: gravity in the cosmos
4. Stars, the periodic table, and & 5.
Our cosmic habitat II: beyond our galaxy
6.
The fine-tuned expansion: dark matter and
7. The n umber h: is cosmic expansion slowing
or speeding? 8. Primordial ripples: the n umber Q 9.
Our cosmic habitat III: what lies beyond our h orizon ?
10. Three dimensions (and more) 11. Coincidence, providence
Notes Index
- or m ultiverse?
LIST O F ILLUSTRATIONS
.............................................................................................
The ouraborus 8 Cubic Space Division by M. C . Esher 58 Angels and Devils by M. C . Esher 60 The trajectory of an expanding universe 87 The emergence of structure in an expanding universe 111 Time chart of our universe 119 The Mandlebrot Set 149
PREFACE
Astronomy is the oldest numerical science, crucial in ancient times for calendars and navigation. It is now experiencing a surge of discovery. The enhanced focus on time as we enter the new millennium is boosting interest in our cosmic environment. Astronomy is still the science of numbers, and this book is the story of six that are crucial for our universe, and our place in it. On the blurred boundaries of ancient maps, cartographers wrote 'There be dragons'. After the pioneer navigators had encircled the globe and delineated the main continents and oceans, later explorers filled in the details. But there was no longer any hope of finding a new continent, or any expectation that the Earth's size and shape would ever be drastically reappraised. At the end of the twentieth century we have, remarkably, reached the same stage in mapping our universe: the grand outlines are now coming into focus. This is the collective achievement of thousands of astronomers, physicists and engineers, using many different techniques. Mod