Just Six Numbers

Description

Astronomer Royal Martin Rees shows how the behaviour and origins of the universe can be explained by just six numbers. How did a single genesis event create billions of galaxies, black holes, stars and planets? How did atoms assemble - here on Earth, and perhaps on other worlds - into living beings intricate enough to ponder their origins? This book describes the recent avalanche of discoveries about the universe's fundamental laws, and the deep connections that exist between stars and atoms - the cosmos and the microscopic world. Just six numbers, imprinted in the big bang, determine the essence of our world, and this book devotes one chapter to explaining each.

Sir Martin Rees is an international leader in cosmology. He is Royal Society Research Professor at Cambridge University, and holds the title of Astronomer Royal. Together with his numerous collaborators he has contributed many key ideas on black holes, galaxy formation and high energy astrophysics. His most recent books are GRAVITY'S FATAL ATTRACTION: BLACK HOLES IN THE UNIVERSE (with Mitchell Begelman), BEFORE THE BEGINNING: OUR UNIVERSE AND OTHERS and JUST SIX NUMBERS: THE DEEP FORCES THAT SHAPE THE UNIVERSE.

His prose is as sharp as his logic and he provides the reader with endless food for thought - EVENING STANDARD This book is a small miracle of concise explanation and offers even the most scientifically challenged reader a new perspective on our universe - SUNDAY TIMES