Customer Reviews

Once Upon a Universe: Not-so-Grimm tales of Cosmology

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This is a must read book for all college students with a passion for
the study of Physics and scientific writings. The author has the
gift of using famous children's classic to convey the physics concepts
in a skilful and humourous way in helping readers to conceptualise the
laws of Physics.

Once Upon a Universe, by Robert Gilmore, was a creative and interesting way to explain complex scientific ideas. This book is a mix of fairy tales that includes well-known characters with interesting names. Some of the tales include "Snow White and the particularly little people", "Waking Beauty", and "Cinderenda and the Death of Stars". Each story begins with a well-known fairy tale and sends its protagonist on a journey to achieve knowledge. Then the story ends with the character learning something extravagant about the Universe or the things inside it. This book did include some ideas that are difficult to grasp and is not an easy read, so do not be fooled by its length. It may be a short book, but it took a long time to actually understand what was being taught.

Overall, this was not my favorite book but it was interesting and worth the effort. Its creative ideas made it in a strange way fun to read. It will certainly help students trying to understand quantum physics and such, so if your looking for a book as a teacher then this is the book for you.

Once Upon a Universe, although it uses a creative way to teach its readers high level science theories, was not a very interesting book. Its flawed adaptations of fairy tales made it a difficult book to enjoy and really get into. Such adaptations include "Snow White and the Particularly Little People", which teaches the reader about particles and atoms. The less-than-captivating adaptations became nearly monotonous, as Gilmore occasionally went into excessive details concerning each subject. In conclusion, although it was a failed attempt at twisting fairy tales, it did teach me interesting scientific information. I would not recommend this book to any except those people who are excessively into science.