How to Build a Universe: An Infinite Monkey Cage Adventure by Brian CoxMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Fans of The Infinite Monkey Cage will be already familiar with the dream team Ince and Cox's approach to talking about science, and How To Build A Universe is no exception.
This book sees the pair concentrating on the fundamentals that build up our known universe and some of the mechanics that make it function as we know it does.
Dealing with high level equations, theories and concepts at times I felt a little overwhelmed by the sheer scale of everything that can be understood, let only simply just theorised, yet ince's witty intermissions, the charming artwork and the comic strips all help break it up into more manageable chunks.
Rather than teach you the fundamentals, I think what the book really sets out to do and achieves is to make the reader appreciate the complexity, beauty and sheer scale of the universe. At one point Ince states something along the lines of "don't expect to understand science after reading one book, it took the scientist that wrote it 20 years to form those ideas and theories" and that is exactly true, but if you've got an interest or would like to be interested, you could do far worse than starting here. What we have here is an introduction to beginning to understand some of the big picture, from the hot big bang and the expansion of the universe, to parallel worlds and multiverse theory and many other things besides.
If you'd like a more accessible overview into some of these things I can't recommend this book highly enough, as Cox and Ince work and apparently write really well together and have created a really interesting, informative and accessible book.
View all my reviews
No comments:
Post a Comment