Just Six Numbers: The Deep Forces That Shape the Universe

Rees, Martin

ISBN 10: 0465036724 / ISBN 13: 9780465036721

Published by HarperCollins Publishers, 2000

About this Item

A masterful, accessible simplification of a theory that explains the genesis of the universe in just six numbers. How did a single genesis event create billions of galaxies, black holes, stars and planets? How did atoms assemblehere on earth, and perhaps on other worldsinto living beings intricate enough to ponder their origins? What fundamental laws govern our universe?This book describes new discoveries and offers remarkable insights into these fundamental questions. There are deep connections between stars and atoms, between the cosmos and the microworld. Just six numbers, imprinted in the big bang, determine the essential features of our entire physical world.

Seller Inventory # 003498

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Just Six Numbers: The Deep Forces That Shape the Universe
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Publication Date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0465036724
• ISBN 13: 9780465036721
• Binding: Hard Cover
• Condition: Like New
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good
• Seller catalogs:
  • Nature
  • Cosmology
  • Astronomy

About this title

Synopsis

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? What fundamental laws govern our universe?This book describes new discoveries and offers remarkable insights into these fundamental questions. There are deep connections between stars and atoms, between the cosmos and the microworld. Just six numbers, imprinted in the “big bang,” determine the essential features of our entire physical world. Moreover, cosmic evolution is astonishingly sensitive to the values of these numbers. If any one of them were “untuned,” there could be no stars and no life. This realization offers a radically new perspective on our universe, our place in it, and the nature of physical laws.

About the Author

Martin Rees is Britain's Astronomer Royal. He is the author of several books, including Gravity's Fatal Attraction: Black Holes in the Universe (with Mitchell Begelman) and Before the Beginning: Our Universe and Others. A member of the Royal Society, the United States National Academy of Sciences, the Russian Academy of Sciences, and numerous foreign academies, Rees is Royal Society Research Professor at Cambridge University.