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Just Six Numbers: The Deep Forces that Shape the Universe Hardcover – January 6, 2000

by Martin Rees (Author)

108 customer reviews

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How did a single “genesis event” create billions of galaxies, black holes, stars and planets? How did atoms assemble—here on earth, and perhaps on other worlds—into living beings intricate enough to ponder their origins? What fundamental laws govern our universe?This book describes new discoveries and offers remarkable insights into these fundamental questions. There are deep connections between stars and atoms, between the cosmos and the microworld. Just six numbers, imprinted in the “big bang,” determine the essential features of our entire physical world. Moreover, cosmic evolution is astonishingly sensitive to the values of these numbers. If any one of them were “untuned,” there could be no stars and no life. This realization offers a radically new perspective on our universe, our place in it, and the nature of physical laws.

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Just six numbers govern the shape, size, and texture of our universe. If their values were only fractionally different, we would not exist: nor, in many cases, would matter have had a chance to form. If the numbers that govern our universe were elegant--1, say, or pi, or the Golden Mean--we would simply shrug and say that the universe was an elegant mathematical puzzle. But the numbers Martin Rees discusses are far from tidy. Was the universe "tweaked" or is it one of many universes, all run by slightly different, but equally messy, rules?

This is familiar ground, though rarely so comprehensively explored. What makes Rees's book exceptional is his conviction that cosmology is as materialistic and as conceptually simple as any of the earth sciences. Indeed,

cosmology is simpler in one important respect: once the starting point is specified, the outcome is in broad terms predictable. All large patches of the universe that start off the same way end up statistically similar. In contrast, if the Earth's history were re-run, it could end up with a quite different biosphere.

Rees demonstrates how the cosmos is full of "fossils" from which we can deduce how our universe developed as surely as we infer the earth's past from the relics found in sedimentary rocks. Rees's theme is nothing less than the colossal richness of the universe. It is an ambitious book, but if anything, it deserves to be longer. --Simon Ings, Amazon.co.uk

From Library Journal

Science writer and astronomer Rees summarizes the history of the universe, pointing out that six numbers related to basic physical constants (for example, the relative strengths of the gravitational and electromagnetic attraction) determine how the universe developed. In addition, he shows how, if these numbers were only slightly different, stars and galaxies would not form, complex chemistry would not be possible, and life could not evolve. This raises the interesting philosophical question, Why? One could dismiss the question by saying that, if it were otherwise, we wouldn't be here to ask or that there is some underlying theory as yet unknown that would show that these values must be what they are. However, Rees suggests that these numbers were set shortly after the big bang and could well have been different. Indeed, there may be a multitude of other universes, forever inaccessible to us, in which they are different. Thus, with a huge choice of possible universes, one must exist that could support intelligent beings who can observe and question. Whether one agrees or not with Rees's ideas, his book is recommended for its cogent synopsis of modern cosmologic thought. [BOMC alternate selection.]--Harold D. Shane, Baruch Coll., CUN.
---Harold D. Shane, Baruch Coll., CUNY
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product details

Hardcover: 192 pages
Publisher: Basic Books; 1st edition (January 6, 2000)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0465036724
ISBN-13: 978-0465036721
Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.8 x 10 inches
Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 108 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #611,471 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1348 in Astronomy (Books)
- #992 in Astrophysics & Space Science (Books)
- #665 in Cosmology (Books)

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Ashley Bles

... book makes learning about the cosmos accessible to someone like me who struggles with higher math

January 6, 2017

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

This book makes learning about the cosmos accessible to someone like me who struggles with higher math. It doesn't dumb anything down, however, and organizes things so well. It honestly is the kind of book that makes you reflect on the grandness of things, but also how lucky we are to be here with all the right circumstances. I recommend it to anyone I know who is interested in space.

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Five stars or when every praise are deserved

January 9, 2013

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

From time to time we read a book in which every praise --in the front or the back cover-- is deserved. This is the case of Martin Rees' "Just six numbers." After reading it you discover with joy that the price you payed was in correspondence with what you expected to get. In my case I expected to learn something about these six numbers "that shape the Universe" and make it unique and suitable for us, and that's what I got plus several insights and knowledge.

The book is divided into 11 chapters of which 6 are dedicated to the numbers themselves. Of those six numbers, in the author words: "Two of them relate to the basic forces; two fix the size and 'overall' texture of our universe and determine whether it will continue for ever; and two more fix the properties of space itself." With respect to the other chapters they work as links between the numbers so you as a reader never get lost in the details and can keep the general view over the big picture.

Although the themes are hard to the common reader (which is my case) the author provides good examples in order to be understood: "We cannot distinguish two events [...] when the time interval between them is less than the Planck time. These scales are smaller than atoms by just as much as atoms are smaller than stars." No matter how hard the theme is, M. Rees manages himself somehow for being comprehended.

Now, and given that the topics touch different sensibilities, the author provides his own vision about the fine tuning problem without being disqualifying. That's why instead of closed statements he opts for new and open questions. In a word, he is polite. Very polite indeed. You have to take into account that Rees is telling us that the universe is a perfectly tuning machine so the answer appears almost spontaneously: Who did tune it? No matter what you think or believe, the numbers and the harmony among them is astonishing. So we as humans need somebody there in the origin just pressing the right buttons.

Mr. Rees knows that the discussion is not going to stop before the last human being breathes for the very last second here on Earth. That's why he prefers to live without abandoning the search for the ultimate answers. He needs to know how does the universe work and how it became the site we live in. So that "...even if we know the basic laws, exploring how their consequences have unfolded over cosmic history is an unending quest."

As I have hinted, this book is for believers and not believers. Everyone can drink from the waters of this (cosmic) river. It is full of knowledge and savvy. You can read it in two days maybe one. Is cheap and it works very well as a link with more recent titles as "The elegant universe" by Brian Greene, "A universe from nothing" by Lawrence Krauss, and "Many worlds in one" by Alex Vilenkin. There are others, of course, but don't miss the fact that "Just six..." is from year 2000 and several things have happened since then.

Highly recommended.

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An enjoyable, fascinating and provocative adventure

October 15, 2011

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

So I have seen this book for a while. It seemed to be calling me for 10 years. Every time I saw the book my mind went off into a tangent of what it must be about ... 6 physical constants, invariant in time and space? It doesn't seem to make sense. I think if my count is right in physics we have 5 Planck dimensions + 12 electromagnetic constants + 11 nuclear constants + 13 physical chemistry constants + 5 adopted values. None are reducible. None can be imputed mathematically. Change one by even a single part in a billion and the apple cart of this universe is convulsively changed. If we could figure out the significance and meaning of the rules of the road, then perhaps we can draw a set of elegant conclusions and win the Nobel.

As a technologist in my chosen niche, I tend to hobby reach for the stuff that I would not ordinarily consider in the course of paying the rent. I've also been fascinated for years by Feynman's quote from 1985 "QED: The strange theory of light and matter":

writing on the fine-structure constant of 1/137.063 ... "It's one of the greatest damn mysteries of physics: a magic number that comes to us with no understanding by man. You might say the "hand of God" wrote that number, and "we don't know how He pushed his pencil." We know what kind of a dance to do experimentally to measure this number very accurately, but we don't know what kind of dance to do on the computer to make this number come out, without putting it in secretly..." .

All of the constants have a curious 'magic' in space-time as they intermingle in their extrordinarily precise operation. With QM, the predictive precision is unprecedented. It might take a lot of time and experience, but every physicist (I think) must come to the irreducible question of "Why?". The pursuit of "Why?" might seem to separate physics from other sciences at core. Physicists are driven by "Why?" to get the "How?". The "How?", then "Why?" is the alternative. Until we know "Why?", capturing "How?" feels incomplete. So as the title "Just Six Numbers" suggests, Rees attempts to name the tune of the universe in just 6 notes.

Dr. Martin Rees is an important mind. What he writes must be considered. His tenure is so long and his experience so great that he can speak in ways few peers would attempt and he will not so easily preclude the chance of "a finely tuned" universe. What he writes here is not at all what I anticipated. The 6 numbers cover three aspects. The first two numbers relate to basic forces. Then, two aspects to align the overall size and texture of the universe. And finally, two aspects to address the properties of space itself. And finally, a consideration regarding the synergy of the 6 aspects

For some scientific readers, a finely tuned and a decided bias of avoiding intelligent design that Rees considers in context with known science must seem an abomination. My recommendation to those firmly decided on the nature of the universe, that this is not the read for you. On the other hand, it seems that not all is certain to explain a formulaic reality or untestable, un-provable infinitely probabilistic QM multiverse variant. If you have a background in physics, the book can be a deep exploration and even difficult. If not, it certainly must be at least interesting. Rees's 6 number proposition requires intellectual effort. For the hobbyist, it might seem a robust and easy read. The concepts are easy to understand, the derivative science on which Rees tests his hypothesis is not.

One reviewer suggest s "unsupported metaphysical conclusion". Metaphysics seems by definition to not-be-physics. As Rees goes to the boundary of the knowable and unknowable and questions "Why?", the lack of an answer remains the question. Plumbing the physical/metaphysical boundary does not make Rees wrong and makes the book far more interesting.

The book needs an update from 1999. More is now known and even more unknown to curiously support Rees's argument by degrees. Current scientific readers will notice that the universe has grown by 2.7B years in the last 10 years for instance. As current physics, 4-stars instead of 5 solely for the lack easily updated science.

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Just Six Numbers: The Deep Forces that Shape the Universe Hardcover – January 6, 2000

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