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This beautifully written book takes you on a thought-provoking journey of our universe, exploring mysteries ranging from from its origin and destiny to the nature of space, time, matter, information, consciousness and even existence itself. Reading it won't leave you will all the answers (we physicists are still searching for them), but it will leave you with a deepened sense of mystery, awe and appreciation both for your universe and for your own life and experience therein.
What this book isn't: Don't let the Zen koans, the East-meets-West theme or the partly poetic writing style fool you into thinking that this is another flaky new age book aimed at stoned hippies: it's not! I can personally certify that Anthony Aguirre is a world-class physicist, and I've had many opportunities to read his peer-reviewed technical physics paper as well as to personally experience his depth and expertise during numerous physics conversations and physics conferences (some of which we organized together) over the years.
What this book is: Rather, I view this as a highly unusual popular science book that uses Zen-inspired stories as entry-points into the deepest mysteries of modern physics. Whereas most physics books focus squarely on the outside world, this one focuses equally on our inner world as conscious observers and how these two worlds are connected. Comparing it to past bestsellers in this genre such as Fritjof Capra's "Tao of Physics" and Gary Zukav's "Dancing Wu Li Masters", I feel that Aguirre's "Cosmological Koans" is much more modern and up-to-date, capturing key recent physics insights about the nature of time, complexity, our early universe, multiverses, observation, consciousness, etc. Aside from the usual popular science book ambition of accessibly explaining core ideas in physics, this book also makes a well-argued radical proposal about your own importance as an observer.
The book is divided into six interconnected parts, which I'd loosely characterize as follows:
1) Nature of space, time and motion: Should we view reality as a 3D stage that evolves over time or an unchanging 4D stage (spacetime) where nothing happens and time is simply the 4th dimension? How does time emerge? What is motion, really? What do Einsteins theories of special and general relativity really mean?
2) Quantum physics: Why does nature sometimes appear random? Is randomness merely an illusion? Is there free will? Should we model our mind and our universe as computations?
3) Thermodynamics: Why is our universe getting ever messier? Is everything ultimately understandable in terms of information and probability?
4) Cosmology: What are the ultimate origins of our universe, and what is its ultimate fate? Is our universe fine-tuned for life and, if so, what do we make of this? Is our universe designed, merely a wild stroke of luck, or only one universe of many?
Part 5: The Observer: Physics is the science of making sense of our world through careful observation. But what is an observer? What are we, really? Are we little computers processing information? Are we simulations? Are we more than our atoms? Are we immortal? Do we have free will?
Part 6: Existence: What is reality? What is existence? What exists? Is information about objects, or are objects made up of information? Who am I? What is this? Where from here?
I found this book a true delightful read, at multiple levels. Its clever use of storytelling makes even state-of-the-art mysteries that today's leading physicists argue about at physics conferences accessible to anyone with a keen interest in big questions. The personal experiences of the author with meditation and introspection makes the book as much a quest for personal enlightenment as about physics. The personal experiences of the author publishing nerdy peer-reviewed papers on these physics topics means that we're getting them explained to us not by a science communicator who merely simplifies and repackages knowledge from others, but from someone who truly understands and has in some cases
generated the knowledge himself.
Last but not least, this Aguirre doesn't merely describe what we do and don't know, but also makes a well-argued radical proposal: that we can't fully understand our observed cosmos without also understanding the nature of the observer, i.e., without understanding what we are. More specifically, he argues that conscious beings such as us aren't an irrelevant side-show, but of cosmically central importance despite our relatively minuscule size: that we're not only responsible for giving *meaning* to your universe, but even for in a real giving *existence* to it. So as I said at the outset, although this book won't leave you will all the answers (we physicists are still searching for them), it will hopefully leave you with a heightened sense of mystery, awe and appreciation not only for your universe, but also for yourself.
- Hardcover: 384 pages
- Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; 1 edition (May 21, 2019)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0393609219
- ISBN-13: 978-0393609219
- Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 1.3 x 9.6 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
- Average Customer Review: 7 customer reviews
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Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#368,947 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #438 in Cosmology (Books)
- #1055 in Physics (Books)
- #278 in Zen Philosophy (Books)
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