Human Universe

If you are not deterred by very occasional moments of trite humanist polemic, special pleading for investment in hard science and a slight tendency to pander to an American readership, this is an absolutely brilliant introduction to current scientific cosmological thought.

It deals with big questions in an adult, uncompromising but clear way. Cox and Cohen have managed to offer us some seriously hard science (well above my comprehension) as jewels in a setting of explanation that mean we actually can understand what we need to understand.

Cox and Cohen do not over-claim for science. They claim for it only what it can do - give us the best framework 'to hand' for understanding what the world is really like out there and what makes us what show more we are or at least appear to be.

This highly probabilistic approach based on rational questioning of available hard evidence and using mathematics as a predictive tool is now giving us a vastly speeded up re-evaluation of our place in the universe to those prepared to listen to what is being said.

The book helps us ordinary Joes catch up with hard science and strip away some of the layers of presumption about our place in the universe. It avoids the tiresome tendency of many science writers to try to explain through speculation in order to force awe on us.

Awe and wonder do not need such rhetorical trickery - the facts now contain enough to make us wonder at the situation in which we find ourselves as accidental emergent consciousnesses in a corner of an incalculably vast multiverse who may or may not be alone in it.

Cox and Cohen look at five basic questions - where are we? are we alone? who are we? why are we here (not meaning why some man in a beard decided to put us here but what are the conditions that enabled our existence) and, the weakest section, what is our future?

Apart from their too pat dismissal (contradicted by some of the data in the rest of the book) of the likelihood of our aloneness as emergent consciousness, there is nothing to argue with in their general conclusions - they have science at its best on their side.

The last section, however, should have been a better and more thoughtful disquisition on existential risk around which there is considerable contemporary hysteria.

One gets the impression that the expansion of the TV format fell apart here because Cox wanted to lobby for investment in the asteroid impact space programme. This is where the bulk of the irritating posturing noted in the first paragraph appears.

There is much to say on existential risk. I share the authors' puzzlement at our political classes' hitherto slow response to the asteroid issue, far more humanly serious than the threat claimed by the less secure science of climate change.

The authors present almost everything they offer us in an uncompromisingly scientifically-based way. They lapse rarely, for example by simply asserting in a few sentences the 'threat of climate change' - either they know and can explain or they cannot.

Still, this is not the bulk of the book. 95% and certainly the sections on the first four questions contain some of the best science writing currently available. It is highly recommended for that reason.

Nor should you be put off by the mathematical formulae. They are there for the clever ones with that sort of mind. The authors do not patronise us with noddy-and-big-ears versions of science but they do not try to take for granted the meaning of the formulae either.

They give brief explanations and then embed the complexity in a narrative that tells us what the science actually means and challenges us to challenge it. But the hidden sub-text of the work is not just scientific but cultural.

In a world in which the vast bulk of the population have no inkling of what the universe is really like or our place in it and in which a democracy of the ignorant is lauded as the right and proper means of conducting ourselves, what this book contains is dynamite.

It shows us that we are both significant and insignificant in different ways. We are significant to ourselves as the only or one of the few emergent consciousnesses capable of understanding its own situation across vast tracts of space and time.

We are insignificant because we are highly vulnerable to the workings of a universe of unpredictable moving parts that does not appreciate our planet-bound biology very much and whose scale is far beyond our imagining except in awesome mathematical and theoretical terms.

Even the 'Big Bang' (last refuge of the theistic scoundrel) is not merely under assault. Cosmology now makes it a blip amongst uncountable infinite blips. The conditions for life or not come into existence in a complex multiverse in which all things are possible.

A personal God will never go away for those whose minds are stuck on such matters but the last vestiges of a cosmological God are hurtling behind yet further barriers of multiversal infinity. Our insignificance in relation to such a 'system' is truly awe-inspiring.

The authors imply that the only option left (other than the cosmic existentialism that is always an individual's fall-back position) is a scientific humanism in which we become the measure of our own significance just because we are, in universal terms, insignificant. show less

"Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space."
– Douglas Adams

And blimey it is big. Brian Cox's Human Universe takes as its theme mankind's "ascent into insignificance": the idea that, back when you and I were just a pair of apes banging rocks on mammoths, we were the centre of the universe, but that every major discovery in astronomy and astrophysics has pushed us further towards the edge.

The universe no longer revolves around the Earth, the stars no longer revolve around our sun, our star system is no longer special for containing planets, the universe no longer ends at the edges of our show more galaxy, ours may not even be the only universe.

You may think that pretty depressing, but if so I'm guessing you're also the sort of person who, as a child, bit the birthday girl because she wouldn't share her presents with you. The fact that we, born of a chance mix of acids, have come to recognise our tiny position in the infinite complexity of the multiverse is astonishing – and certainly a better story than a plate of spare ribs being turned into a hot nubile virgin.

"Meaning," Cox argues, "is an emergent property." Right now, as you read this, there are experiments going on, on Earth, to create an artificial star. We have already simulated the moments following the very birth of our universe. And we've sent a machine beyond the boundaries of our solar system. Not bad for a kid from the primordial ooze. show less

I'm a big fan of Brian Cox and this book made me love him even more. This wasn't just a purely scientific book, it was a sometimes comical and witty love letter to humanity, with the occasional moment of holding up a mirror to us all and making us reflect on what we're doing to our planet.

This book answers all of those big questions you've ever had about life, where we came from, why are we the lucky ones to have been created on one planet in such a vast universe, where life came from etc.

Every question I've ever had about the universe was answered and explained in layman terms and I think that's what makes this book incredible.

This was apparently going to be a companion book to Brian Cox's five-part BBC series of the same name. It's more than that. It's better. It's a very readable introduction to our species--what we are, where we are...and are we alone? It's also a tribute to humanity. There are so many perspectives in this book I personally share, it felt at times that it was written specifically for me. Here's a quote from the book that not only exemplifies this but also tells you what it's about:

One of the central themes of this book has been to argue that the human race is worth saving because we are a rare and infinitely beautiful natural phenomenon. One of the other themes is that we are commonly and paradoxically ingenious and stupid in equal

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measure.

And then there's this......we are the most meaningful thing the universe has to offer as far as we know, and when all is said and done, that's a significant thing to be.
And this...Education is the most important investment a developed society can make, and the most effective way of nurturing a developing one.

On the other hand, there were a couple of things I didn't care for. The edition I read is coffee table size, 11.25" by 9" with thick, glossy pages. It's not an easy one to read in bed at night, which is what I tend to do. It's too big, too heavy, and the reflection of a reading lamp on the shiny pages makes it difficult to see properly. Then, there are the pictures. This book is loaded with them, and although fine in and of themselves, they are often more distracting than elucidating.

You might want to opt for the paperback or eBook versions, but I can wholeheartedly recommend this for anyone with an interest in the human species. show less

In the book to accompany the TV series of the same name Professor Brian Cox links human evolution to the development of our exploration of space - or tries to...
In fact this is a confused and confusing book. There are two stories trying to work together but they don't really manage it. The story of the development of space exploration and understanding is well put together and whilst some of the maths and concepts may be beyond the average reader, it doesn't become a 'textbook' of quantum physics. The parts about human development are also interesting but they don't seem to fit in with the physics.
This feels like a good idea that is in fact a rather self-indulgent vanity project and it's all about the 'rock'n'roll physicist'

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I have had my mind alternately expanded and compressed. Prof. Cox doesn't avoid discussing complex topics or details of physics that ordinarily most would find baffling; instead he patiently explains the concepts clearly using stories and analogies to be sure that the point is well communicated.

I am very much looking forward to exploring his other works.

Really informative and thought provoking. I will definitely reread to get a better understanding of some of the more challenging scientific concepts.