Customer Reviews

The Last Three Minutes: Conjectures About the Ultimate Fate of the Universe (Science Masters Series)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

It is safe to say that I grew up reading Paul Davies; my first real introduction to physical sciences such as astronomy and physic was the television series 'Cosmos'; that inspired me to purchase the companion text, which further inspired me to join the Astronomy Book Club two dozen years ago. One of the first books offered, and the first book I received from them, was Paul Davies' 'Other Worlds' -- from then on, I was hooked. I have nearly a dozen books by Paul Davies, all on topics of theoretical physics, astrophysics and cosmology -- he is consistently readable, entertaining and educating with the same style that compels the reader to want more (which he then provides).

It was not surprising to me to see his name on the Science Masters Series. The series has basic introductions to many of the key issues in science today -- evolution, origins of life, cognitive science, time, computer science, and more. Each volume is relatively short -- 'The Last Three Minutes' has a mere 150 pages of text that is not too dense, sparing technically and mathematically without losing much conceptually.

The issue of the end of the universe is one of the 'hot spots' of astrophysics and cosmology, and so there are elements of this book that are already a bit out of date, despite being less than a decade old. However, given the speculative nature of many 'discoveries' in this field, it is impossible to say if anything is truly out of date or false at the present time.

Davies explores the end of the universe by setting the stage -- drawing from current thinking about the origins of the universe, in fact one of the options for conjecture, in a closed universe system, would be that the last three minutes would resemble quite closely the first three minutes. Davies looks at the various processes -- stellar evolution and decay, gravitational issues, overall radiation depletion, energy-fuel consumption -- and draws these together for the various theories about the end of the universe.

Davies shows the ideas of the closed/collapsing universe (a view not widely held today) and of the infinitely expanding universe (the current reigning theory), giving ideas about the variables required to tip the scales in one direction or the other. Even with an infinitely expanding universe, however, all is not necessarily well with the world -- the universe runs the risk (in the future so distant there is no realistic way of expressing it in terms of time we know) of becoming a dark, deep freeze with no activity left, and all matter becoming inert and inactive in every respect.

Davies speculates on what this means for the survival of humanity and human history -- how can information be preserved? How can our species go on in the face of this? Such speculation is pure conjecture; the time distances are so far removed that nothing we devise will likely come close to resembling an actual answer to this. However, it is interesting as a mental exercise, and leads the reader hopefully to further reading.

Paul Davies gives us brilliant speculative descriptions of different possibilities of the end of the universe. But as one of the former reviewers states, the latest scientific data indicate that the universe will continue to expand forever. So, part of this book is obsolete.

I believe that the author is also too optimistic about the fate of mankind in the universe after the dying of the sun. If mankind doesn't commit suicide, he predicts not less than a colonization of the entire Milky Way.

As always with Paul Davies, the different stories are told in a clear and easily comprehensible vocabulary. This book is written in a swinging style and is as fascinating as a dazzling thriller.

A very interesting and stimulative read.

The book starts with what I might consider a fake-out: Davies starts by recounting a situation where some asteroid has been found to be on a collision course with Earth and the final minutes in our existence considering that we know we're going to be hit by a "global killer". While this is interesting, it's a bit of fiction. We were scared for a bit that later this century we would be hit by something heading our direction, but it was found to be missing us by just a little bit later. After considering the possibilities and probabilities of these happening for some pages, he notes that even if we do die this way, it's not exactly the last three minutes of the <em>universe</em>, just life on earth. Going on, he discusses the possibility of heat death, seemingly unavoidable by the second law of thermodynamics and something which depressed scientists to no end after they found it out. He also covers the possibility that the universe may stop expanding and start contracting at some point in the future.

Davies seems to work very hard to make the material not as dry as a AA member at a monastery by connecting most of the theory to what would actually happen, assuming that human life exists at that point. Unfortunately, the evaporating power of the material seems to take over, and I couldn't really get through this book all the way without forcing myself through long sections on black holes that I really didn't care much about. After the long discussion of black holes and how we could possibly get energy out of them stops, Davies got to the meat of what I was actually looking for: heat death or contracting universe. The last third of the book was actually much easier to read than the middle and much more intersting than most of the rest. Contracting and "Bouncing back" universes are discussed along with an actually interesting tangent about artifically creating universes by tricks with false vacuum. One other thing I really like about this book - Davies seems to go out of his way to make sure you know where to look up more information about the situations he talks about - even without resorting to looking at the notes in the back.

The book is actually better than many I could have read on the subject, and did increase my knowledge of the possibilities for the ultimate fate of the universe fairly extensively. It definitely gets my recommendation for geeky reading over the summer, at least if you can get through to the really interesting parts. At 176 pages, it is actually more reading than it looks like at a paltry paperbook size. If it weren't for the dry section in the middle, it wouldn't be B grade material.

Actually 4 1/2 stars.
While some parts of the book are speculative, drawing parallels with Chown's Universe Next Door, the book has too much meat in it to ignore. The issues related to Cosmology and Quantum Physics can get foggy for a lay reader, unless (s)he keeps reading more and more. This is just one book which is an indispensable part of the pop-science collection so necessary if you are into Cosmology and Quantum Physics. Paul Davies is a fine writer and I value his books just next to the Gribbin, Rees, Barrow, Hawking books that I have (can add Brian Green to that too). And this is one of his best. I have taken off half a star only because the book has a 'little' vagueness in the way it progresses form one topic to the other. One has to re-read it to get a wholistic picture of what has just been told - er, having written that, I'm not sure if it is criticism.

Sorry, but I don't agree with you 'hwhitney@sprintmail.com from St. Louis'. This is a great subject for Mr. Davies to expound upon. He does what he does best here, makes you think, gives ideas and the tools to come up with your own philosophies on life and the Universe. Many people say this is a doom and gloom book but I found it quite refreshing to know the Universe may actually continue to exist forever and Humankind may find a way to exist along with it. This is not just a cut and dry here's what'll happen book. It begins like a great Novel that ties you up in suspense and not just another physics textbook. Great EASY reading for anybody curious about our possible future. Some understanding from his previous books is helpful, but NOT a prerequisite. KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK MR. DAVIES.

This book overviews the current major ideas of cosmology and sets them against a logical background of ultimate fate. What happens to the universe ultimately depends upon whence we came. Davies takes several theories and then logically extrapolates the possible fates of the universe.

One of the things to keep in mind is the fact that "infinity is a long time" and this reoccuring theme is central to the ideas he develops. If the universe is expanding, what eventually happens to matter? If the universe is contracting, what will eventually happen to matter? Where does matter come from? Can matter be created or destroyed over infinite amounts of time?

Such ideas explored are the steady state theory, the expanding universe and "cold heat" death. The contracting universe and the eventual ceasing of all time, matter --- everything... The oscillating universe where matter can be created from "nothing" .

Some of the info is a little dated -- I suppose this applies if you are a graduate student in the Astrophysic department of Cambridge University. But for the average bloke with an interest in cosmology, one need not be worried about reading "old" materials. In fact the popular science, current considerations about the universes initial inflation stage -- that fraction of a secong when expansion and matter may have formed --- is well described and should serve as an intro to other reading.

The one thing that I really like about Davies is that his writing is clean and does not become a political tract: eg. Dawkins, Pinker and Dennet.

This trend towards writing "polically" based appreciations of scientific theory is based upon two things in my estimation: 1) the rise of the irrational, Voodoo Science and stark raving mad religious fundementalists --- scientific authors often rightly feel that they are fighting a rear guard action against the forces of darkness, and: 2) amazing egos that need to be assuaged (Dawkins and Dennet) so they feel that they must always address all potential attacks, however inconsequential, to defend their "good name."

Davies is clean and can present contrasting and even illogical ideas (Bede's "Darwin's Black Box") in a non-political way -- and still make the guy look irrelevant to modern science.

That is why, along with Matt Ridley, Davies is the best writer in popular science, worthy to assume the mantle of Carl Sagan.

An elegant book on the ultimate fate of the universe - cosmological speculations based upon well known hard physics - and all very exciting stuff extremely well written, and easily grasped if one remembers any high school science at all.
All the subject matter concerns a physical scale (large and small), a time scale (long and short), and a temperature scale (hot and cold) of such stupendously extreme parameters that reading becomes a terrific brain stretching exercise that delightfully removes one from the tiny doings of one's own overly personalized and petty mind circus.

Most cosmologists pretty well agree that the seeds of the end of the universe are inextricably connected with its genesis. Oddly enough, these cosmologists further agree that they probably know more about the universe's beginning than its end. Paul Davies, in his 1994 THE LAST THREE MINUTES, posits not only one ending that might take three minutes, but also several others of varying time closures. Davies mentions that at the birth of this universe there probably was a very slight excess of baryonic matter over non-baryonic. This slight excess almost certainly (notice how I often qualify my assertions with 'probably' and 'almost certainly'? Can't help it) did not matter very much in the pre-exponential inflationary state, but as our nascent universe exploded under the impetus of the false vacuum pressure pushing outward, it went from sub-proton size to a grapefruit size in a trillionth trillionth of a nano-second. As I read this, I saw that Mr. Davies has the right knack useful in explaining highly technical material. He clearly presents the conventional wisdom of the start of our universe. However, it is when he delves into its end that he begins to attract hostile critics like Leslie Brown, who clearly is upset with Davies' assertions about (a) the amount of dark matter in the universe that Davies believes will cause a Big Crunch and (b) Davies' speculations about other and more fanciful ways the universe could end. Davis suggests that our universe could end without warning if the current vacuum state that has existed for the last fifteen billion years should unexpectedly slide into a still lower state. Now this, despite Mr.Brown's anger, is still reasonably possible. There is nothing in physics that forbids such a slide. However, Mr.Davies branches off into other areas that while enjoyable to contemplate have not a shred of proof to indicate their possibility. Davies suggests that a Uni-mind of beings that may exist nano-seconds before the Big Crunch can play mind tricks and draw out a 'virtual' universe that need not correspond to clock time, thereby eternalizing the existence of that mind. This may be so, but I see nothing in physics that states it must be so.
While the reliability of the evidence that suggests that we live in a closed universe, doomed one day to cease expansion and retreat into the same nothingness from which it came, has recently been held less reliable than a belief in the opposite, a forever expansion, still I am not quite so quick to relegate Paul Davies and his mixture of accepted truth with unaccepted conjecture to the cosmic black hole of discarded ideas. Just because I do not ardently trumpet his ideas as linked to my own, I still like to think that in a book designed more for the layman than for the professional, enjoyment and not elucidation ought to rank high as to why one read it in the first place.

This book takes you the end of the universe. Paul Davies' descriptions of the various potential fates for the universe are both engrossing and easy to understand (which is not always the case with this genera). He describes the implications of both a closed universe, one that will eventually re-collapse in on itself, and an open universe, which will continue to expand forever. Although current studies performed by the international "BOOMERANG" consortium indicate that the universe is likely to be flat, Davies' accounts of the various potential fates of a closed universe remain fascinating. Moreover, as nothing in science is ever certain, new observations could turn the tables on this cosmic debate.

Paul wrote this book with the knowledge that only one of the theories described in his book will be applicable to the universe in which we live. I think that anyone with a curiosity about the universe will find this book intensely satisfying. When people heard the news that "The Universe Is Flat," many breathed a sigh of relief, mostly because the idea of the universe collapsing in a giant fireball doesn't sound like much fun. But, if the universe is flat, and if the universe does not collapse, what will be it's ultimate fate? What will life be like in such a universe? Paul Davies has some answers to these questions. And when you learn what life would be like in the inconceivably distant future, you may decide that a flat universe is not the best place after all.

I found Davies' "The Last Three Minutes" a fascinating read. I meant only to read the preface while I was waiting in the store, but I became immediately engrossed and realised that I had to buy it so that I could finish it. His descriptions about the 2 options of the ultimate fate of the universe (whether it will collapse on itself, or expand forever) are made incredibly clear. Unfortunately, the book was published merely a year before scientists discovered that the universe will indeed expand forever (Deemed "the breakthrough of the Year" for 1998 by the journal Science). This makes all discussion of "the Big Crunch" (and about half of the book) purely conjectural. My only problem with the book was his attempts to discuss the ultimate fate of humans and their descendants. I thought that it was a little irrelevant and ought to be left to philosophers rather than cosmologists.

All in all, an informative read.