The Origins of the Future: Ten Questions for the Next Ten Years

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 320 pages
• Published by: Yale University Press December 28, 2007
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0300125968
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0300125962
• Book Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.2 x 1 inches
• Weighs: 11.2 ounces

Product Review
"This is the ultimate book on ultimate origins from strings, to quarks, to present day particles, galaxies, WIMPS, the solar system, life and the ultimate death, written by the premiere science expositor in John Gribbin."-Allan Sandage, author of The Mount Wilson Observatory: Breaking the Code of Cosmic Evolution (Allan Sandage ) --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Description
How did the universe begin? Where do galaxies come from? How do stars and planets form? Where do the material particles we are made of come from? How did life begin? Today we have only provisional answers to such questions. But scientific progress will improve these answers dramatically over the next ten years, predicts John Gribbin in this riveting book. He focuses on what we know—or think we know—about ten controversial, unanswered issues in the physical sciences and explains how current cutting-edge research may yield solutions in the very near future.
With his trademark facility for engaging readers with or without a scientific background, the author explores ideas concerning the creation of the universe, the possibility of other forms of life, and the fate of the expanding cosmos. He looks at “theories of everything,” including grand unified theories and string theory, and he discusses the Big Bang theory, the origin of structure and patterns of matter in the galaxies, and dark mass and dark energy. In the final chapter of the book, Gribbin ponders the future of Earth and the Sun and the possibility that the universe might expand forever.

Reader Reviews
This review is from: The Origins of the Future: Ten Questions for the Next Ten Years (Hardcover) Astrophysics, particle physics, cosmology, and astronomy require advanced mathematics and high tech tools to really get to the nitty-gritty of the subject matter. Having neither, I, like so many others, struggle along with help from writers like John Gribbin. The unwritten premise of this book and many another in similar fields is that there is something valuable to be gained by learning about physics, cosmology and kindred disciplines even without the mathematics and the high tech tools. The ten questions that Gribbin addresses here begin with "How Do We Know the Things We Think We Know?" through "How Did the Universe Begin?" and "Why Is the Universe the Way It Is?" and "Where Did Life Originate?" etc., and end appropriately enough with, "How Will It All End?" The first question is not an epistemological philosophic query, although it looks like one. He means how do we know the things about the cosmos that we think we know? and it is a very interesting question answered mostly through reading the electromagnetic radiation from distant sources and drawing conclusions based on spectrography. This knowledge is combined with what we know about particle physics, chemistry, general relativity, quantum mechanics and even geology to make some very clever deductions about what is out there very, very far away. Even without the math some of the material is difficult. Especially challenging are the chapters dealing with the zoo of subatomic particles both extant and theorized. But Gribbin is a very good and knowledgeable writer with a flair for the kind of enthusiasm about his subject that makes the reading fascinating. Many books on science find it necessary to repeat a lot of scientific history in the various disciplines before they get to the latest discoveries. Gribbin does not do that here, perhaps because is previous book, The Scientists was a history of science. He does give us information on earlier theories and ideas when such information is apt, such as when explaining how the solar system originated since the latest ideas are different from what you and I were probably taught in school. In fact, Gribbin considers "old science" that science which occurred before the 21st century! I thought the most interesting chapters were the latter four on where the elements came from, on the origin of the solar system, on where life originated, and how the universe will end. Gribbin makes the argument that it is likely that life was already on its way to realization before the earth came into being. He supports this with new discoveries of amino acids and other "precursors of life" molecules in what are called Great Molecular Clouds seen throughout the universe. The material on the composition of comets and meteors furthers this argument since they contain many organic chemicals, some of which have only been recently discovered. Gribbin even goes so far as to say that "inside the icy bulk of a comet, warmed by the radioactive decay of short-lived isotopes...vesicles formed in little puddles and became filled with complex organic molecules...[T]his extends the time available for chemistry to take the step from nonliving to living from a couple of hundred million years...to several thousand million years." Big difference! (p. 243) I found a lot of new information on the life and death of stars, on just which chemical elements are formed where and when, and a very clear delineation of the latest thinking about dark matter and dark energy. There is also some speculations in tune with M-theory and parallel universes and the relatively recent belief among cosmologists that the universe may very well be infinite. I learned that most stars are born in threes, but one is thrown out so most stars we see in the sky are actually binary stars. Gribbin dubs our star as a "wanderer" that was once part of a binary or triplet group. Worried about an expanding sun some four or so billion years down the road? Gribbin explains how we might be able to use asteroids initially powered by rockets to swing around the earth and to the giant planets and back, transferring energy from there to here to gradually move the earth further away from the sun! (p. 253) All in all a most interesting and informative read, one of the best I've read on cosmology and astrophysics in recent years.