The Goldilocks Enigma: Why Is the Universe Just Right for Life? [Hardcover]

P. C. W. Davies (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 2006

In The Goldilocks Enigma, Paul Davies embarks on a comprehensive examination of current theories as to why the universe is so finely tuned, so astonishingly "just right". Davies considers a raft of answers to the book's central question. He tells the whole story in a clear, well-paced manner that rivets the attention while boggling the mind.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 360 pages
• Publisher: Allen Lane (2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0713998830
• ISBN-13: 978-0713998832
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,550,828 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Paul Davies is an internationally acclaimed physicist, cosmologist, and astrobiologist at Arizona State University, where he runs the pioneering Beyond Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science. He also chairs the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Post-Detection Taskgroup, so that if SETI succeeds in finding intelligent life, he will be among the first to know. The asteroid 1992OG was officially renamed Pauldavies in his honor. In addition to his many scientific awards, Davies is the recipient of the 1995 Templeton Prize--the world's largest annual prize--for his work on science and religion. He is the author of more than twenty books, including The Mind of God, About Time, How to Build a Time Machine, and The Goldilocks Enigma. He lives in Tempe, Arizona.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very important, December 2, 2006

By 

Richard A. Ryals "island" (DiracSea) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Goldilocks Enigma: Why Is the Universe Just Right for Life? (Hardcover)

This is a very important book because it is about a cosmological principle that links humans to the forces and structure of the universe by way of many coincidentally balanced features, (The Goldilocks Enigma), that are necessary to our existence, and at the same time are relevant to the structure of the universe. These coincidences range from the near-perfectly "flat" balanced structure of the universe, itself, all the way down to our local ecosystem, and any sustained deviation from this anthropically fixed balance sends conditions racing drastically far away from anything conducive to life.

A cosmological principle is a specific theory or model of structure and dynamics, so I only gave Paul's book four stars because backwards causation won't be accepted in any form, and a true anthropic constraint on the forces will necessarily include a reciprocal connection to the human evolutionary process, which indicates that Professor Davies should be looking for an inherent mechanism that enables the universe to "leap" to higher orders of the same basic structure.

This would be the result if Davies and Dawkins actually got on the same page for a change, and I believe that this fine physicist was also very much on the trail of this thermodynamic feature in his studies of quantum field theory in curved space'time, because matter generation from the energy of Einstein's finite vacuum necessarily increases negative pressure via "rarefaction". This naturally causes expansion, rather than the other way round, but the universe does not suffer from runaway expansion because the effect is offset by the increase in ordinary matter density, so tension between the vacuum and ordinary matter increases instead.

Eventually, the integrity of the forces that bind the universe will be compromised and the system will "evolve", so the next universe will be a little bit more symmetrical than the last, and that defines the purpose of evolution, as well as causality, as this is evidenced by the extremely near-missed "goal" of the last big bang. It's "The Physics of Time Asymmetry", which is another fine book by Paul Davies, a man who is definitely on the right track. I would highly recommend anything written by him.

Davies also gives one of the best laymans terms representations of current cosmology that I have seen anywhere. He does a very good job explaining the different cosmological models and the evidence that exists for and against each of them.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Seeking the Ultimate Answers, December 1, 2006

By 

Ventura Angelo (Brescia, Lombardia Italy) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Goldilocks Enigma: Why Is the Universe Just Right for Life? (Hardcover)

This Universe seems neatly programmed for life...to the point that a small difference in the resonnce property of helium amnd beryllium atoms could held no carbon, and therefore no life as we know it! Many other particular shows this universe to be fine-tuned for life. How and why it is so? Paul Davies in this brillint and clearly written book resumes what dowe now know or think of know on this question, examining possible answers, from intelligent design to string theory, to the Multiverse theory, contemplating even the Matrix Argument,that is, are we living in an artificial or simulated Universe? The answer Paul Davies feels more inclined to give is different, and includes the importanceof life and mind to the Universe itself. A fascinating book that sums up the state of the art on the answers to the meaning of Life, The Universe amd Everything.