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How It Began: A Time-Traveler's Guide to the Universe 1st Edition

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Chris Impey (Author)
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Chris Impey (Author)
4.4 out of 5 stars 31 customer reviews
ISBN-13: 978-0393080025
ISBN-10: 0393080021
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Product Details

  • Hardcover: 448 pages
  • Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; 1 edition (March 26, 2012)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0393080021
  • ISBN-13: 978-0393080025
  • Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 1.5 x 9.6 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,093,940 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Top Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsCatching up with the universe
By Roberto Perez-Franco on April 13, 2012
Format: Hardcover
(Review published in MIT's The Tech on April 13, 2012)

I grew up in the Panamanian countryside, under pristine skies bursting with stars. Defenseless against the nightly spectacle, I had no choice but to become a backyard astronomer. A Spanish translation of Isaac Asimov's The Universe (1966) transformed a romantic interest in constellations into a healthy scientific understanding of the cosmos. Asimov's tome, although dated, satisfied my thirst for cosmological knowledge long enough for me to shift my attention to more mundane things. Two decades went by until I discovered -- with a mix of delight and trepidation -- that while I was not looking, a third revolution in cosmology, by no means smaller than those triggered by Copernicus and Hubble, was taking place right under my nose, during my lifetime.

Obscure and puzzling terms, such as dark matter and dark energy, were now ubiquitous in a discussion that I no longer recognized as familiar and that -- much to my dismay -- I was no longer able to follow with confidence. The good old Big Bang I was familiar with had now been revised and expanded to include exotic concepts such as an inflationary stage, an accelerating rate of expansion, and the possibility that our whole universe may be only a tiny part of a bubbling multiverse, explainable by means of microscopic vibrating strings. Ouch! Eager to catch up with the fantastic new questions and findings of the ongoing third cosmological revolution, I searched again for an instructive and entertaining book that could do for me now what Asimov's book had done 20 years earlier.

Alas! A pilgrimage through the pages of a dozen books, each with diverse strength and shortcomings, was necessary for me to catch up with our current understanding of the universe.Read more ›
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4.0 out of 5 starsContemplating the Infinite
By J. Groen VINE VOICE on April 18, 2012
Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase
As I read this book, the most striking sense that I got was the overwhelming size of the universe. These are numbers that I can't even fathom, approaching infinite from both a large perspective and a small perspective.

From the large perspective, here are some numbers quoted in the book. The size of the universe is 10 to the 34th power (that is 34 zeroes after ten) light years where a light year is approximately 5.8 trillion miles. The total mass (weight) of the universe is 10 to the 54th power kilograms. There are 100 billion galaxies (Milky Way is just one) in the universe. The universe is 14 billion years old.

From a small perspective, in the process of finding out how the universe started, physicists have been pursuing smaller and smaller items, coming to the concept of a quark which can only be identified through collisions from these huge accelerator units.

This is impressive stuff to the layman in the world of astronomy like myself and therefore very interesting.

The book pursues the origination of the universe by starting with the earth, the moon, the solar system, our galaxy and continuing onto other galaxies in the universe that have been found via telescopes on earth and the Hubble telescope. Through this trip, the author shares stories of important physicists along the way, Hubble, Einstein, Lemaitre (sp?) etc. and stories regarding himself. The stories regarding himself are apparently provided for human interest and are not a highlight of the book. In these stories, we find how dedicated and eccentric these individuals are (including the author, I daresay), but I suppose that this is necessary to come to the conclusions that they have.Read more ›
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5.0 out of 5 starsAn Excellent Update and Fun Read
By James A. Stehr on June 3, 2012
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
Not only did I get a well rounded update from the physics I learned in 1962, but also I really enjoyed Chris Impey's presentation of this subject. He's created both an educational and artful piece of work particularly attractive to non-scientists like me. He uses analogies to real world examples to communicate the vast scale of the universe and the relative size of sub-atomic particles. It was good to get an update on the current "Standard Model" of subatomic particles and forces. When I left the movie, I thought the Bohr model was all there was. His humorous anecdotes and one-liners are superb!
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3.0 out of 5 starsWell-structured
By NJ on April 5, 2014
Format: Kindle Edition
How it began is a good summary of where cosmology is as of now. It does not try to provide new information or perspective. Rather, the biggest utility of the book is in its structure, coherence and simplicity.

The book starts somewhat weak by spending time on earth and solar systems, The real science (howsoever speculative or deductive) comes in as the book moves to stars and galaxies. For any avid reader of cosmology, there is little that will be new. However, the way the book navigates through pulsars, supernovae, background radiation, black holes etc is impressive.

Author's attempts at flowery, personalistic descriptions at the end and the beginning of each chapter reads quite artificial and not just distracting but almost wrong or at least needless at least to this reader. I am sure there would be many who will love such tales in books of this kind.

Overall, a neat summary for someone who has read on the subject before and possibly more useful introduction to the first timers.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars

Very good book

Published 2 days ago by monika
5.0 out of 5 starsFantastic book, full of mind-blowing concepts

Fantastic book, full of mind-blowing concepts, theories and imagination. Works like this unite the beauty of the imagination with the miraculous simplicity of life. Read more

Published 7 months ago by J. Antani
5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars

excellent!

Published 7 months ago by chung hsieh
5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars

Great book - puts it together nicely

Published 8 months ago by Gregg DuPont
5.0 out of 5 starsThis work is up to date, and covers all ...

This work is up to date, and covers all the theories, including the problems with the big bang and alternate theories.

Published 13 months ago by Science buff
3.0 out of 5 starsThree Stars

Ordered for a friend at his request.

Published 19 months ago by Betty C. Jennings
5.0 out of 5 starsVery Good Book, Very Well Titled

The best part of the book are the italicized sections at the beginning and end of each chapter that are devoted to his dream-like journey through space and time. Read more

Published 19 months ago by amacust
5.0 out of 5 starsDon't know much about cosmology? Wanna learn?

Then buy this book. It is written so well that a lay ignoramus like myself can even comprehend, and more importantly quite enjoy.

Published 23 months ago by Richard Olson
4.0 out of 5 starsVery enjoyable

This was an easy read and while I was given the hard copy (paperback) I enjoyed it so much that I purchased the Kindle version for greater accessibility. Read more

Published on December 14, 2013 by Darrell Wilson
5.0 out of 5 starsNicely bookends his earlier How It Ends

Readers familiar with Chris Impey's earlier How It Ends are in store for a combination of the famliar and the surprising when they read this book. Read more

Published on November 27, 2013 by Steve Reina

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