What do you think?
Rate this book
How It Began: A Time-Traveler's Guide to the Universe
In this vibrant, eye-opening tour of milestones in the history of our universe, Chris Impey guides us through space and time, leading us from the familiar sights of the night sky to the dazzlingly strange aftermath of the Big Bang.What if we could look into space and see not only our place in the universe but also how we came to be here? As it happens, we can. Because it takes time for light to travel, we see more and more distant regions of the universe as they were in the successively greater past. Impey uses this concept—"look-back time"—to take us on an intergalactic tour that is simultaneously out in space and back in time. Performing a type of cosmic archaeology, Impey brilliantly describes the astronomical clues that scientists have used to solve fascinating mysteries about the origins and development of our universe.The milestones on this journey range from the nearby to the we travel from the Moon, Jupiter, and the black hole at the heart of our galaxy all the way to the first star, the first ray of light, and even the strange, roiling conditions of the infant universe, an intense and volatile environment in which matter was created from pure energy. Impey gives us breathtaking visual descriptions and also explains what each landmark can reveal about the universe and its history. His lucid, wonderfully engaging scientific discussions bring us to the brink of modern cosmology and physics, illuminating such mind-bending concepts as invisible dimensions, timelessness, and multiple universes.A dynamic and unforgettable portrait of the cosmos, How It Began will reward its readers with a deeper understanding of the universe we inhabit as well as a renewed sense of wonder at its beauty and mystery.
448 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2012
86 people are currently reading
605 people want to read
About the author
Chris Impey
25 books144 followersChris Impey is a University Distinguished Professor in the Astronomy Department and Associate Dean in the College of Science at the University of Arizona in Tucson. He has written popular articles on astronomy and is the author of a number of popular science books. The Living Cosmos is a tour of the search for life in the universe, and the pair of books How It Ends and How It Began cover the origin and fate of everything in the universe. Talking About Life is a series of conversations with pioneers in astrobiology. With Holly Henry, he wrote about the scientific and cultural impact of a dozen iconic NASA missions, Dreams of Other Worlds. A book about his experiences teaching cosmology to Tibetan monks, Humble Before the Void was published in 2014, and his book about the future of humans in space, called Beyond, was published in 2015. His first novel is called Shadow World.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 40 reviews
January 12, 2013
I love cosmology books. And I enjoyed this one, which spun backwards from the formation of Earth's moon to the earliest beginnings of the universe. I particularly liked Impey's intro and outro to each chapter, where he envisioned what it would be like to see some of these cosmic wonders in person. Some of the stuff at the end was kind of esoteric and over my head (not surprisingly). But I also learned a cool new word, apophenia, which refers to the brain's tendency to perceive patterns where none exist.
August 10, 2019
Cosmology, astronomy and physics with a bit of whimsy
This is a terrific book, one of the best I’ve ever read on cosmology. But to be honest some of it was a bit over my head and most of it was very demanding on my attention span and ability to concentrate. But for all that this is a grand book, spanning imaginatively all of time and space and ending up right where it began...with more questions than answers, with awe and wonder.
At the beginning and end of each chapter Impey employs a time and space travel conceit imagining that he is an incorporeal being traveling through and out of the solar system beyond the Milky Way all the way back to the very early universe, even to the Planck time 10 to the minus 43 seconds after the Big Bang. Since what we know about the universe involves traveling back in time both conceptually and visually this seems apt especially when we consider that we see the stars as they were in the past, especially the very distant past, millions and billions of years ago.
I thought this attempt at getting a feel for what it is like very far away and long ago was worth doing, but I don’t think it is the best part of the book. What really counts in “How It Began” is the science.
Professor Impey, who is deeply seeped in both astronomy and cosmology, takes the reader on a journey to understand and appreciate all that we humans have learned about the universe and its properties with an emphasis on the most current research. He addresses not just black holes and background radiation but dark matter and dark energy, string theory and some esoteric mathematics (but equations more difficult that e = mc squared do not appear in the book). He explains at length why he would bet his pinkie finger (p. 274) that the big bang model of the universe is correct. (Personally I think it would be wiser to wager just a hangnail.) He speculates not only on why there is something rather than nothing, but on what other universes might be like and on whether we can ever really understand the nature of the cosmos.
The main challenge for the reader is the length and diversity of the book. At 434 fairly dense pages employing perspectives from history, physics, cosmology, astronomy, fantasy, philosophy, and poetry Impey has in a sense thrown out a gauntlet to the general reader which declares there will be no dumbing down! (Yes, poetry. I think part of the inspiration for the structure of this book comes from T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets.” On page 330 Impey quotes this famous line from the poem: “And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”)
What I most admire about this book (in addition to Professor Impey’s expertise) is its honesty. In addition to no dumbing down there’s a clear expression of how little we really know relative to what there is to know and more than a hint that we might be at the limits of our knowledge. Additionally, Impey is clear about the glaring problem concerning string theory, brane theory, superstring theory, and M-theory. Quite simply there is a complete lack of experimental proof for the theories and it seems that there never will be any proof since such proofs may be beyond our ability.
Having said all this I didn’t really get excited about this book until the latter chapters, “Unification and Inflation” and “Multiverse.” In those final chapters I found the most interesting, most edifying and most satisfying discussion of the aforementioned theories along with some clear insights into just what is going on in theoretic physics and cosmology today insofar as the general reader can have entrée into such esoteric and demanding disciplines.
Here are some highlights and examples of Impey’s views:
After noting that the “eternal inflation” model of the universe resembles the old steady state model, Impey writes: “Modern cosmology posits our universe as a quantum event. Vacuum energy can momentarily create particle-antiparticle pairs anywhere, even in front of you (but on an undetectably small scale) in your living room. It can also create a universe opulent enough to contain you and your living room. There’s no ducking the weirdness of the microworld so let’s remind ourselves how very weird it is.” (p. 333)
“Determinism is dead. Descriptions of nature are probabilistic. There’s a deep connection between any observer and the thing being observed. Nothing is real until it’s observed. An electron is an extended wave of probability that collapses into finite reality when it’s observed.” (p. 334)
“A standard big bang must create...(the universe) out of nothing, whereas inflation ‘borrows’ it from vacuum as a quantum fluctuation. By Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle it only takes a hundredth of a gram to almost instantly create the universe...” (pp.334-335)
On page 344 Impey begins his delineation of string theory. He notes that “the size and the energy scale of strings are many trillions of times beyond what can be probed by lab experiments or accelerators...” He also notes that eventually theoretical physicists came up with “five different types of string theory, each fiendishly difficult to work on, with no apparent way to decide among them.” Finally the big surprise was that “All the supersymmetric string theories involved 10 space-time dimensions!” (p. 345) Impey goes on to describe brane theory (with eleven dimensions, seven of them hidden below the Planck limit) and then M-theory and onto the multiverses, the states of which may number “10 to the power of 1 with 10 million zeros after it...” (p. 414)
These numbers may remind the reader of the “many worlds” interpretation of quantum mechanics which has a new universe arising with each different quantum event. Impey writes, “Physicists have a schizophrenic reaction to the idea. Most of them accept it as just as valid a description of reality as the more conventional Copenhagen interpretation, but it also makes them uncomfortable and they’d usually rather not talk about it.” (p. 415)
Naturally this situation leads to some incredulousness if not outright hostility even within the theoretical physics community. Impey recalls that “Two decades ago Richard Feynmann criticized string theory as ‘crazy’ and ‘the wrong direction’ for physics, and Sheldon Glashow, who won a Nobel Prize...tried to keep string theorists out of his department at Harvard (and failed).” (p. 414)
My tentative, layman’s conclusion about string theories is that they are mathematical interpretations of reality.
Impey also touches upon the idea that we could be creatures in a virtual reality world similar to that from the movie, “The Matrix.” He writes, “Your conviction that you’re made of flesh and blood and free will is part of the simulation.” He adds that such a reality is “no more unfounded or illogical than the multiverse or hidden space-time dimensions.” (p. 357)
Finally I want to applaud Impey for debunking the so-called “anthropic principle.” Identifying the anthropic principle as the argument that the universe is “built for life,” Impey writes, “At one level it’s a tautology. There’s no reason to be surprised you exist. I’m not. If the universe didn’t have properties consistent with the emergence of carbon-based, intelligent life, neither of us would be here to be surprised. If you were a bridge player who realized that the odds of being dealt a particular hand are 1 in 600 billion, it would be absurd to look at your hand and marvel at how unlikely it was.” (p. 355) I was especially pleased to read this since I have previously in other reviews used the same playing card analogy to argue against the anthropic principle.
As for figuring this all out, Impey writes, “Finally, there’s always the lurking doubt, alluded to earlier, that the fundamental truth is beyond our intellectual grasp, just as quantum mechanics is incomprehensible to a dog. Flawed and finite, we may have reached the limit of our understanding.” (p. 349)
And here’s my final word: according to modern cosmology the universe began as a quantum fluctuation. Consequently the universe is a random event.
—Dennis Littrell, author of “Hard Science and the Unknowable”
This is a terrific book, one of the best I’ve ever read on cosmology. But to be honest some of it was a bit over my head and most of it was very demanding on my attention span and ability to concentrate. But for all that this is a grand book, spanning imaginatively all of time and space and ending up right where it began...with more questions than answers, with awe and wonder.
At the beginning and end of each chapter Impey employs a time and space travel conceit imagining that he is an incorporeal being traveling through and out of the solar system beyond the Milky Way all the way back to the very early universe, even to the Planck time 10 to the minus 43 seconds after the Big Bang. Since what we know about the universe involves traveling back in time both conceptually and visually this seems apt especially when we consider that we see the stars as they were in the past, especially the very distant past, millions and billions of years ago.
I thought this attempt at getting a feel for what it is like very far away and long ago was worth doing, but I don’t think it is the best part of the book. What really counts in “How It Began” is the science.
Professor Impey, who is deeply seeped in both astronomy and cosmology, takes the reader on a journey to understand and appreciate all that we humans have learned about the universe and its properties with an emphasis on the most current research. He addresses not just black holes and background radiation but dark matter and dark energy, string theory and some esoteric mathematics (but equations more difficult that e = mc squared do not appear in the book). He explains at length why he would bet his pinkie finger (p. 274) that the big bang model of the universe is correct. (Personally I think it would be wiser to wager just a hangnail.) He speculates not only on why there is something rather than nothing, but on what other universes might be like and on whether we can ever really understand the nature of the cosmos.
The main challenge for the reader is the length and diversity of the book. At 434 fairly dense pages employing perspectives from history, physics, cosmology, astronomy, fantasy, philosophy, and poetry Impey has in a sense thrown out a gauntlet to the general reader which declares there will be no dumbing down! (Yes, poetry. I think part of the inspiration for the structure of this book comes from T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets.” On page 330 Impey quotes this famous line from the poem: “And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”)
What I most admire about this book (in addition to Professor Impey’s expertise) is its honesty. In addition to no dumbing down there’s a clear expression of how little we really know relative to what there is to know and more than a hint that we might be at the limits of our knowledge. Additionally, Impey is clear about the glaring problem concerning string theory, brane theory, superstring theory, and M-theory. Quite simply there is a complete lack of experimental proof for the theories and it seems that there never will be any proof since such proofs may be beyond our ability.
Having said all this I didn’t really get excited about this book until the latter chapters, “Unification and Inflation” and “Multiverse.” In those final chapters I found the most interesting, most edifying and most satisfying discussion of the aforementioned theories along with some clear insights into just what is going on in theoretic physics and cosmology today insofar as the general reader can have entrée into such esoteric and demanding disciplines.
Here are some highlights and examples of Impey’s views:
After noting that the “eternal inflation” model of the universe resembles the old steady state model, Impey writes: “Modern cosmology posits our universe as a quantum event. Vacuum energy can momentarily create particle-antiparticle pairs anywhere, even in front of you (but on an undetectably small scale) in your living room. It can also create a universe opulent enough to contain you and your living room. There’s no ducking the weirdness of the microworld so let’s remind ourselves how very weird it is.” (p. 333)
“Determinism is dead. Descriptions of nature are probabilistic. There’s a deep connection between any observer and the thing being observed. Nothing is real until it’s observed. An electron is an extended wave of probability that collapses into finite reality when it’s observed.” (p. 334)
“A standard big bang must create...(the universe) out of nothing, whereas inflation ‘borrows’ it from vacuum as a quantum fluctuation. By Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle it only takes a hundredth of a gram to almost instantly create the universe...” (pp.334-335)
On page 344 Impey begins his delineation of string theory. He notes that “the size and the energy scale of strings are many trillions of times beyond what can be probed by lab experiments or accelerators...” He also notes that eventually theoretical physicists came up with “five different types of string theory, each fiendishly difficult to work on, with no apparent way to decide among them.” Finally the big surprise was that “All the supersymmetric string theories involved 10 space-time dimensions!” (p. 345) Impey goes on to describe brane theory (with eleven dimensions, seven of them hidden below the Planck limit) and then M-theory and onto the multiverses, the states of which may number “10 to the power of 1 with 10 million zeros after it...” (p. 414)
These numbers may remind the reader of the “many worlds” interpretation of quantum mechanics which has a new universe arising with each different quantum event. Impey writes, “Physicists have a schizophrenic reaction to the idea. Most of them accept it as just as valid a description of reality as the more conventional Copenhagen interpretation, but it also makes them uncomfortable and they’d usually rather not talk about it.” (p. 415)
Naturally this situation leads to some incredulousness if not outright hostility even within the theoretical physics community. Impey recalls that “Two decades ago Richard Feynmann criticized string theory as ‘crazy’ and ‘the wrong direction’ for physics, and Sheldon Glashow, who won a Nobel Prize...tried to keep string theorists out of his department at Harvard (and failed).” (p. 414)
My tentative, layman’s conclusion about string theories is that they are mathematical interpretations of reality.
Impey also touches upon the idea that we could be creatures in a virtual reality world similar to that from the movie, “The Matrix.” He writes, “Your conviction that you’re made of flesh and blood and free will is part of the simulation.” He adds that such a reality is “no more unfounded or illogical than the multiverse or hidden space-time dimensions.” (p. 357)
Finally I want to applaud Impey for debunking the so-called “anthropic principle.” Identifying the anthropic principle as the argument that the universe is “built for life,” Impey writes, “At one level it’s a tautology. There’s no reason to be surprised you exist. I’m not. If the universe didn’t have properties consistent with the emergence of carbon-based, intelligent life, neither of us would be here to be surprised. If you were a bridge player who realized that the odds of being dealt a particular hand are 1 in 600 billion, it would be absurd to look at your hand and marvel at how unlikely it was.” (p. 355) I was especially pleased to read this since I have previously in other reviews used the same playing card analogy to argue against the anthropic principle.
As for figuring this all out, Impey writes, “Finally, there’s always the lurking doubt, alluded to earlier, that the fundamental truth is beyond our intellectual grasp, just as quantum mechanics is incomprehensible to a dog. Flawed and finite, we may have reached the limit of our understanding.” (p. 349)
And here’s my final word: according to modern cosmology the universe began as a quantum fluctuation. Consequently the universe is a random event.
—Dennis Littrell, author of “Hard Science and the Unknowable”
August 27, 2023
Chris Impey seems like a lovely person. But he is not a good writing. He misuses and overuses flowery language to try and sound both profound and relatable. He fails at both. He manages to present relatively simple ideas e.g. anthropic reasoning in a very confusing way. The only reason I know what he's talking about half the time is that I already know the science. Nobody should read this book to learn about cosmology less the end up deeply confused.
Not only is the writing poor and meandering, but the editing is also poor. Chapters are not well organized, and he repeats himself a lot. Sometimes he'll present a great perspective on a subject e.g. he lays out a good take-down of fine tuning. But then in the next chapter he misrepresents fine-tuning exactly the way he warned against in the previous chapter. This leads me to believe he's not even written this book from scratch but cobbled together separate writings, hopefully his own, into a stack of pages high enough to satisfy his publisher.
I *almost* liked many of the poetic digressions. Almost. With a good bit of editing, plus some more mature form or meter, this might have been a great book of cosmological poetry. That's totally my thing. But he's got years of work to do before he's ready for that kind of thing. I'm actually hoping he does it. He's got potential. Maybe that would be less condescending if he was a High School student. Because that's the level he's at right now.
I'm happy Chris Impey has a passion for explaining science to a lay audience. This comes a cross clearly. But his writing sounds more like a kid who saw some science on TV trying to explain it to his mom. Not that he doesn't know his stuff. He's educated in the field and has published. But you need more than knowledge + passion to be a good science communicator. You need the skill of anticipating what other people don't yet know, so you can tell it to them. And it helps not to sound cringy.
Not only is the writing poor and meandering, but the editing is also poor. Chapters are not well organized, and he repeats himself a lot. Sometimes he'll present a great perspective on a subject e.g. he lays out a good take-down of fine tuning. But then in the next chapter he misrepresents fine-tuning exactly the way he warned against in the previous chapter. This leads me to believe he's not even written this book from scratch but cobbled together separate writings, hopefully his own, into a stack of pages high enough to satisfy his publisher.
I *almost* liked many of the poetic digressions. Almost. With a good bit of editing, plus some more mature form or meter, this might have been a great book of cosmological poetry. That's totally my thing. But he's got years of work to do before he's ready for that kind of thing. I'm actually hoping he does it. He's got potential. Maybe that would be less condescending if he was a High School student. Because that's the level he's at right now.
I'm happy Chris Impey has a passion for explaining science to a lay audience. This comes a cross clearly. But his writing sounds more like a kid who saw some science on TV trying to explain it to his mom. Not that he doesn't know his stuff. He's educated in the field and has published. But you need more than knowledge + passion to be a good science communicator. You need the skill of anticipating what other people don't yet know, so you can tell it to them. And it helps not to sound cringy.
April 28, 2018
How it Began feels disorganized. It also contains large chunks of text in italics where I think the author is trying to wax poetic about the universe and pump some excitement into the proceedings, but instead these chunks just add another layer of boredom. I learned some things from this book, but I didn’t have much fun in the process and every time I dipped into it I soon found myself wishing I was reading something else.
August 21, 2019
How it Began is a whimsical exploration of the cosmos through the power of the author’s imagination. The book is informative, but I sometimes had difficulty perceiving where the author was setting his imaginary person. I believe at one point the author’s avatar was floating through space, far enough away from our Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxies to be able to see them both. Thankfully, these sections are put in italics so you can tell when he is imagining the scene.
So initially, Chris Impey talks about the formation of our Solar System and how we came to find out about it. Impey talks about the Moon, how we can speculate its origins but not know them, and other planetary bodies that we might be able to reach. Of course from an engineering perspective, we are really far from being able to reach any other area of the Solar System other than the Moon. This is because space is really vast and mostly made up of empty space. However, I digress; Europa is one of Jupiter’s Moons and is thought to have liquid water. Impey talks about other places we might be interested in as well, but it would require a lot of effort and scientific advances to make it hospitable to our species.
Since the book is called How It Began I figured it would discuss the Big Bang and in that sense, I was not disappointed. It is a sort of wash rinse repeat situation with how it talks about the Cosmic Microwave Background, Dark Matter, Dark Energy, the theory of General Relativity, the theory of Special Relativity, and so on. Impey doesn’t leave many stones unturned when he discusses Cosmology.
The book flows well and is usually easy to follow and understand. The only real problem I had was with the aforementioned imaginary scenes. They threw me off and initially bothered me. Eventually, I got used to them and came to appreciate them.
So initially, Chris Impey talks about the formation of our Solar System and how we came to find out about it. Impey talks about the Moon, how we can speculate its origins but not know them, and other planetary bodies that we might be able to reach. Of course from an engineering perspective, we are really far from being able to reach any other area of the Solar System other than the Moon. This is because space is really vast and mostly made up of empty space. However, I digress; Europa is one of Jupiter’s Moons and is thought to have liquid water. Impey talks about other places we might be interested in as well, but it would require a lot of effort and scientific advances to make it hospitable to our species.
Since the book is called How It Began I figured it would discuss the Big Bang and in that sense, I was not disappointed. It is a sort of wash rinse repeat situation with how it talks about the Cosmic Microwave Background, Dark Matter, Dark Energy, the theory of General Relativity, the theory of Special Relativity, and so on. Impey doesn’t leave many stones unturned when he discusses Cosmology.
The book flows well and is usually easy to follow and understand. The only real problem I had was with the aforementioned imaginary scenes. They threw me off and initially bothered me. Eventually, I got used to them and came to appreciate them.
January 10, 2022
With a lot of science and a little imagination, astronomer Chris Impey leads us on a tour of our universe, showing us not only what we have figured out about the cosmos, and how, but also what mysteries remain.
May 13, 2016
Well this was very much not at all what it promised to be. The way the description and even introduction made it sound was that it would be discussing the few minutes immediately following the Big Bang, but what it actually was was just another pop sci book about "the universe" look back from now and into the past. That said, it wasn't bad. It was very thoughtfully told and the author's anecdotes gave it a little something that made it different enough from, say, Simon Singh's "Big Bang" that it wasn't an absolutely waste of time, and the information was presented really coherently with some new insights that I hadn't thought of before, excepting the fact that it was written in 2012 and thus was still really sceptical about this whole Higgs boson thing.
The one thing that I really didn't like were the author's little vignettes at the beginning and end of each chapter that made to tell a little story about a person travelling backward in time and thus through space. Yeah, author dude? Don't quit your day job. That's some of the worst sci-fi I've ever read. If you do find yourself inclined to pick up a copy of this book, go ahead and just skip those bits. You aren't missing anything.
The one thing that I really didn't like were the author's little vignettes at the beginning and end of each chapter that made to tell a little story about a person travelling backward in time and thus through space. Yeah, author dude? Don't quit your day job. That's some of the worst sci-fi I've ever read. If you do find yourself inclined to pick up a copy of this book, go ahead and just skip those bits. You aren't missing anything.
February 7, 2013
The science was informative. Also liked the biographical sketches of the astronomers. I could have done without the "eye witness" journey in each chapter.
January 21, 2022
A book that attempts to look forward in order to look back, but in doing so is a product of the uncertainty and speed of development within the fields of Cosmology and Astrophysics. We did find the Higgs Boson particle, but the Standard Theory still has unexplainable gaps. We do have private Rocket Launches now, but it's much more gaudy and crass than anticipated - especially cast against, "We choose to go to the Moon. We choose to go to the Moon...We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard..."
HOW IT BEGAN is also stymied by its format. While the prose sections follow a logical structure, the non-fiction hard science parts bounce between science history and science. This often helps the pacing, but waters down the science in places by immediately showing just how shaky Mankind's logic is on certain principles. Impey goes out of his way to scorn intelligent design, in a gentle manner but often enough to know that the author sees any scientific writing that has delved into intelligent design is in their view a Cop-out for the harder work of hypothesis, logic, and inductive reasoning.
Fair enough, but that's a proposition made more difficult by how unreliable we're realizing our perception is outside of math and physics because we're limited by being human. And we can go on from here, but the final section of the HOW IT BEGAN focusing on string theory, quantum physics, multi-verses, a matrix, are the most pock-mocked but curious sections. I am not a transhumanist, I believe death is a keystone to evolution. Nor do I believe we'll ever fully realize what makes us human in silicone. I also believe that the SIXTH DAY law was a rational decision. I think where Impey strays at points from the elucidating is in waxing poetic towards ideas that he openly states, 'we don't know,' and 'we don't know what we don't know', and 'we're quickly becoming unable to prove certain things that we either speculate or don't know because what we're hypothesizing (string theory for instance) isn't actually testable or observable.' Which, you know, begins to sound a lot like faith and religion. That being said by the time the book gets away from red shift, dark matter, anti-matter, and all the many things that DO NOT make this light reading - for me anyways - and focuses in the final moments on the big ideas of our time going forward (which read like philosophy, because in many ways physics is philosophy proven by math. Einstein asked questions, thought experiments, that's how we got relativity. He didn't start with the equation) the book ends. Because, really, we just don't know BUT we feel a very intense desire to know. Yet, every-time we get closer to cracking that nut, we throw away the nut and start again because we find out that nut isn't really a nut at all, but a brain inside an abstract-but-immeasurable-unknowable-infinitely expanding-but-somehow-weightless-particle that CAN'T NOT exist because we'd all be inside out and have six dicks.
Basically where we are as a species is: "The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things that lifts human life a little above the level of farce, and gives it some of the grace of tragedy." Physicist, Steven Weinberg
I recommend it because this is a book that's challenging enough to get admirers and laymen thinking while being welcoming enough we can actually get through the damn book.
HOW IT BEGAN is also stymied by its format. While the prose sections follow a logical structure, the non-fiction hard science parts bounce between science history and science. This often helps the pacing, but waters down the science in places by immediately showing just how shaky Mankind's logic is on certain principles. Impey goes out of his way to scorn intelligent design, in a gentle manner but often enough to know that the author sees any scientific writing that has delved into intelligent design is in their view a Cop-out for the harder work of hypothesis, logic, and inductive reasoning.
Fair enough, but that's a proposition made more difficult by how unreliable we're realizing our perception is outside of math and physics because we're limited by being human. And we can go on from here, but the final section of the HOW IT BEGAN focusing on string theory, quantum physics, multi-verses, a matrix, are the most pock-mocked but curious sections. I am not a transhumanist, I believe death is a keystone to evolution. Nor do I believe we'll ever fully realize what makes us human in silicone. I also believe that the SIXTH DAY law was a rational decision. I think where Impey strays at points from the elucidating is in waxing poetic towards ideas that he openly states, 'we don't know,' and 'we don't know what we don't know', and 'we're quickly becoming unable to prove certain things that we either speculate or don't know because what we're hypothesizing (string theory for instance) isn't actually testable or observable.' Which, you know, begins to sound a lot like faith and religion. That being said by the time the book gets away from red shift, dark matter, anti-matter, and all the many things that DO NOT make this light reading - for me anyways - and focuses in the final moments on the big ideas of our time going forward (which read like philosophy, because in many ways physics is philosophy proven by math. Einstein asked questions, thought experiments, that's how we got relativity. He didn't start with the equation) the book ends. Because, really, we just don't know BUT we feel a very intense desire to know. Yet, every-time we get closer to cracking that nut, we throw away the nut and start again because we find out that nut isn't really a nut at all, but a brain inside an abstract-but-immeasurable-unknowable-infinitely expanding-but-somehow-weightless-particle that CAN'T NOT exist because we'd all be inside out and have six dicks.
Basically where we are as a species is: "The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things that lifts human life a little above the level of farce, and gives it some of the grace of tragedy." Physicist, Steven Weinberg
I recommend it because this is a book that's challenging enough to get admirers and laymen thinking while being welcoming enough we can actually get through the damn book.
January 22, 2019
Seems like an Astronomy 101 course made into a book. I didn't like the first person imaginative sections.
One interesting section was about dark matter as modified gravity being strongly evidenced against by the observation of two galaxies that had collided- the dark matter of each galaxy had continued on along with their respective stars, but the gas of the galaxies had more directly collided and interacted but didn't seem to have much dark matter of it's own, which it ought to if it were modified gravity.
It's said that dark matter only interacts with regular matter through gravity, but what about with itself? Is it diffuse or clustered- is there a clump of dark matter at the core of the Earth, or the Sun, or instead an even distribution through our solar system? Does that one example show that is either clustered (where the sparse clusters are as unlikely as stars to hit each other in galactic collision), or diffuse but not self interacting? Could much dark matter even settle into a galactic orbit if it didn't have some amount of physical interaction with itself? If unknown are there any experiments or future observations that could answer any of those questions?
Dark energy vs. big bang vs. inflation - all are involved in expansion but are they wildly different somehow? This book didn't help me much there.
One interesting section was about dark matter as modified gravity being strongly evidenced against by the observation of two galaxies that had collided- the dark matter of each galaxy had continued on along with their respective stars, but the gas of the galaxies had more directly collided and interacted but didn't seem to have much dark matter of it's own, which it ought to if it were modified gravity.
It's said that dark matter only interacts with regular matter through gravity, but what about with itself? Is it diffuse or clustered- is there a clump of dark matter at the core of the Earth, or the Sun, or instead an even distribution through our solar system? Does that one example show that is either clustered (where the sparse clusters are as unlikely as stars to hit each other in galactic collision), or diffuse but not self interacting? Could much dark matter even settle into a galactic orbit if it didn't have some amount of physical interaction with itself? If unknown are there any experiments or future observations that could answer any of those questions?
Dark energy vs. big bang vs. inflation - all are involved in expansion but are they wildly different somehow? This book didn't help me much there.
October 29, 2023
OK. I gimped along until page 110 and then had to just hang it up. Impey enjoys telling this story and for someone with a LOT of physical science background it is probably a delightful tale. But I am honestly unable to intellectually follow and have many, many other books to explore instead ...
Here's the section where I cashed it in on page 110:
"Due to the phenomenon of frame-dragging, space itself swirls around the spinning black hole like water exiting a bathtub. Rotation as rapid as 99 percent the speed of light has been observed. A spinning black hole has two event horizons, and the faster the black hole spins the closer together they come. Between two event horizons space and time are interchanged. Beyond the outer event horizon lies an ellipsoidal region called the ergosphere ..."
It's with serious regret that I put this book down but there's no sense in just reading word-by-word sans a modicum of comprehension. Sorry, Chris, I appreciate that you tried but I need a way more dumbed-down version of the history of the universe. Thanks anyway.
Here's the section where I cashed it in on page 110:
"Due to the phenomenon of frame-dragging, space itself swirls around the spinning black hole like water exiting a bathtub. Rotation as rapid as 99 percent the speed of light has been observed. A spinning black hole has two event horizons, and the faster the black hole spins the closer together they come. Between two event horizons space and time are interchanged. Beyond the outer event horizon lies an ellipsoidal region called the ergosphere ..."
It's with serious regret that I put this book down but there's no sense in just reading word-by-word sans a modicum of comprehension. Sorry, Chris, I appreciate that you tried but I need a way more dumbed-down version of the history of the universe. Thanks anyway.
June 19, 2022
Cosmology / Astrophysics can get as convoluted as it can get fascinating . While Chris Impey does not solve thai problem for you , he definitely thrusts you into this. If you are looking for an introduction to workings of the Universe, this book is not for you neither is it for you , if you want to unravel its deepest secret . It’s ideal for wanna be cosmologists or those in the “Goldilocks” zone of understanding as it might plug in some gaps of your understanding. ( I.e. I came to understand why the radial speed of outer arms of Galaxy was a clue to Dark matter, why gravitational lensing points to it , why quasars emit radio waves etc ) but overall it’s likely to raise more questions….like a good book should .
January 18, 2025
***.5
The book is quirky, scattered, and uneven, touching briefly on many different topics and flitting around the universe like a drunk squirrel with ADHD.
The writing is almost uncomfortably casual, but occasionally gets deeply technical, which is a bit jarring. Overall the difficulty level is so inconsistent that it’s really not clear who he’s writing for.
Despite the flaws, the content is absolutely fascinating, the approach creative, the delivery engaging, and just about every reader will learn something interesting.
Bottom Line: a frustrating but worthwhile read
The book is quirky, scattered, and uneven, touching briefly on many different topics and flitting around the universe like a drunk squirrel with ADHD.
The writing is almost uncomfortably casual, but occasionally gets deeply technical, which is a bit jarring. Overall the difficulty level is so inconsistent that it’s really not clear who he’s writing for.
Despite the flaws, the content is absolutely fascinating, the approach creative, the delivery engaging, and just about every reader will learn something interesting.
Bottom Line: a frustrating but worthwhile read
September 17, 2017
It's a fantastic update on the frontline of cosmology and the scientific journey that's taken us there, as well as frankly showing us the enduring questions & mysteries we still face. All that, and written in a completely compelling storytelling tone that takes you from your own place here and now, to the farthest reaches of time and space.
July 4, 2020
I have been trying to grasp cosmology as it is now understood and read this book after doing a lecture course on this subject. I still do not understand half of what they are talking about but this book continued to help me move closer to understanding I think. Not sure if I will pursue this topic any further.
October 18, 2017
Impey makes travel through time and the universe in first person type accounts.
Conrad
Conrad
April 4, 2018
An entertaining introduction to the history of the universe told in a personal entertaining fashion.
May 9, 2018
It's just another pop cosmology book, like so many others that I like to read, but I really like the imaginative way Dr. Impey writes.
March 6, 2020
Genesis, as written by the government bureaucrats of the 20th century. Cute, but far from a captivating read.
September 7, 2020
Beautifully written. Truly reads like the author loves the subject.
December 14, 2021
Too many adjectives
October 15, 2012
I can't really comment on how this book compares to other books about astronomy and what we know about the early universe. I don't know if this is better or worse than other similar books. All I know is that I loved reading this book, and I loved learning about our solar system, our galaxy, and our universe.
Mr. Impey starts the book on Earth, and progressively moves out from our world to the solar system, to nearby galaxies, and then to more distant galaxies, all the while explaining how discoveries from different areas of the universe shape our understanding of the shape and fabric of the universe. As we examine galaxies more and more distant from Earth, we are in effect traveling back in time, peering into the universe in its earliest stages, and helping us see details of how it formed and what it looked like throughout its history.
Mr. Impey begins and ends each chapter with an imagined out of body experience as if floating in space near the location of something he describes during that chapter, and often looking back toward earth, seeing it as if the light from it was just arriving at the location in space where he is floating, but in perfect detail in spite of the fact that we can't see anything like that of other worlds. In essence, the farther he "traveled" from Earth, the earlier in Earth's history he could "see" and he eventually traveled far before human history and even the formation of the earth itself. This approach struck me as uncomfortably odd for the first half-dozen or so chapters, but I began to appreciate it more toward the end as I could more easily visualize the remote areas of space in a more personal way than I would otherwise. But it's not a terribly standard approach to cosmology.
I would recommend this book to anybody even remotely interested in astronomy or in understanding what we currently know or theorize about the creation of the universe. Mr. Impey is a great writer; he is well read and includes allusions from many different disciplines in his writing. He often includes a few paragraphs of biography of interesting astronomers that he mixes into the narrative, and I appreciated the humanism of that approach. He never gets too mathy, and explains difficult concepts with recognizable metaphors to help those of us unversed in scientific rigor to understand more readily. He also is clear about how much evidence is behind what we know, what we think we know, and what we wish we knew, providing a framework for us to understand where the edge of science is still trying to answer questions, and where our knowledge is much more solid.
When I finished reading the book, I have to admit I was a little sad. I wanted the story to keep going. I wanted to know the next chapter in our discovery and understanding of the wonders of the way the universe works.
Mr. Impey starts the book on Earth, and progressively moves out from our world to the solar system, to nearby galaxies, and then to more distant galaxies, all the while explaining how discoveries from different areas of the universe shape our understanding of the shape and fabric of the universe. As we examine galaxies more and more distant from Earth, we are in effect traveling back in time, peering into the universe in its earliest stages, and helping us see details of how it formed and what it looked like throughout its history.
Mr. Impey begins and ends each chapter with an imagined out of body experience as if floating in space near the location of something he describes during that chapter, and often looking back toward earth, seeing it as if the light from it was just arriving at the location in space where he is floating, but in perfect detail in spite of the fact that we can't see anything like that of other worlds. In essence, the farther he "traveled" from Earth, the earlier in Earth's history he could "see" and he eventually traveled far before human history and even the formation of the earth itself. This approach struck me as uncomfortably odd for the first half-dozen or so chapters, but I began to appreciate it more toward the end as I could more easily visualize the remote areas of space in a more personal way than I would otherwise. But it's not a terribly standard approach to cosmology.
I would recommend this book to anybody even remotely interested in astronomy or in understanding what we currently know or theorize about the creation of the universe. Mr. Impey is a great writer; he is well read and includes allusions from many different disciplines in his writing. He often includes a few paragraphs of biography of interesting astronomers that he mixes into the narrative, and I appreciated the humanism of that approach. He never gets too mathy, and explains difficult concepts with recognizable metaphors to help those of us unversed in scientific rigor to understand more readily. He also is clear about how much evidence is behind what we know, what we think we know, and what we wish we knew, providing a framework for us to understand where the edge of science is still trying to answer questions, and where our knowledge is much more solid.
When I finished reading the book, I have to admit I was a little sad. I wanted the story to keep going. I wanted to know the next chapter in our discovery and understanding of the wonders of the way the universe works.
August 23, 2016
Not the sort of book I can read in an extended sitting. Too much information and too many mindbending ideas. The style is colloquial which is most helpful for an amateur in the field.
Impey’s strength is that he does a fine job of explaining difficult concepts in reasonably simple terms with numerous analogies to the ordinary and everyday. So, to illustrate the chanciness of any one thing occurring, he tells the story of how he met his wife, that the reason his son – this son – is listening to him is because of the peculiarities of a monkey in South America. He describes the size of the solar system in terms of apricots and peas and football fields, etc etc etc.
It works. The strategy allows me to put a new piece of information up against what I already know. Like measuring the starting height for the Olympic high jump in my living room: I can then stand and look at it … and wonder!
There is so much to wonder at.
Thanks to Chris Impey, (I think) I now have a decent grasp of event horizons, black holes, why the sky is so dark at night, how little stuff there is in this universe, why the Big Bang stands up as a reputable theory, and so on. The sheer emptiness of the universe is truly astounding.
I am grateful.
The third section bamboozled me more often. I was altogether lost among the fermions and bosons for a while there.
Impey is a scientist. He grapples with the theological theory of the Intelligent Designer with respect and clarity. He presents a position that is straightforward and reasonable. For me, it doesn’t really matter. I don’t need proofs and arguments anymore; I believe in a divine essence/deity/God/etc because of my experience.
Why am I reading this book? What has it got to do with the next book I want to write? To quote Carl Sagan: ‘In order to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.’ (1980)
Impey’s strength is that he does a fine job of explaining difficult concepts in reasonably simple terms with numerous analogies to the ordinary and everyday. So, to illustrate the chanciness of any one thing occurring, he tells the story of how he met his wife, that the reason his son – this son – is listening to him is because of the peculiarities of a monkey in South America. He describes the size of the solar system in terms of apricots and peas and football fields, etc etc etc.
It works. The strategy allows me to put a new piece of information up against what I already know. Like measuring the starting height for the Olympic high jump in my living room: I can then stand and look at it … and wonder!
There is so much to wonder at.
Thanks to Chris Impey, (I think) I now have a decent grasp of event horizons, black holes, why the sky is so dark at night, how little stuff there is in this universe, why the Big Bang stands up as a reputable theory, and so on. The sheer emptiness of the universe is truly astounding.
I am grateful.
The third section bamboozled me more often. I was altogether lost among the fermions and bosons for a while there.
Impey is a scientist. He grapples with the theological theory of the Intelligent Designer with respect and clarity. He presents a position that is straightforward and reasonable. For me, it doesn’t really matter. I don’t need proofs and arguments anymore; I believe in a divine essence/deity/God/etc because of my experience.
Why am I reading this book? What has it got to do with the next book I want to write? To quote Carl Sagan: ‘In order to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.’ (1980)
July 29, 2012
I figure if I read enough of these sort of books, I might actually understand the theories.
I could have done without the sci-fi bits that began and ended each chapter. I'd puzzle through them and then have to reorient my brain to the actual science presented.
The first several chapters were great. So were the last few. The nine in the middle, well, I was ratherlost. Or perhaps I was in an alternate universe? Or maybe it's all part of the alien simulation?
Favorite quotes:
"Ironically deists and atheists are united in having to explain creation out of nothing."
"It's unfortunate that the quest to understand the fundamental nature of matter has led to a formalism that makes the field opaque to all but an elite cadre of theoretical physicists. To them, the theory contains math that's achingly beautiful and elegant. To others, it's inscrutable and the practitioners are high priests from a strange cult who speak in tongues."
Having met a few astrophysicists, and physicists in training recently, I think the latter is an excellent description.
I came away feeling I understood string theory better, and had some understanding of other ideas of the formation of the universe. For a journalism major (who chose it because it required no math), I'd say it was an accomplishment.
I could have done without the sci-fi bits that began and ended each chapter. I'd puzzle through them and then have to reorient my brain to the actual science presented.
The first several chapters were great. So were the last few. The nine in the middle, well, I was ratherlost. Or perhaps I was in an alternate universe? Or maybe it's all part of the alien simulation?
Favorite quotes:
"Ironically deists and atheists are united in having to explain creation out of nothing."
"It's unfortunate that the quest to understand the fundamental nature of matter has led to a formalism that makes the field opaque to all but an elite cadre of theoretical physicists. To them, the theory contains math that's achingly beautiful and elegant. To others, it's inscrutable and the practitioners are high priests from a strange cult who speak in tongues."
Having met a few astrophysicists, and physicists in training recently, I think the latter is an excellent description.
I came away feeling I understood string theory better, and had some understanding of other ideas of the formation of the universe. For a journalism major (who chose it because it required no math), I'd say it was an accomplishment.
February 21, 2013
This is the second book by Impey I have read, and they both left me with a feeling of 'it was ok, nothing special.' I have seen Impey give talks and I have always enjoyed them; he has a way with speaking to an audience. For me, it just doesn't translate into the written word.
There is lots of good information in this book, so perhaps I just don't like his writing style. He explains the beginnings of the Earth, the Solar System, Stars, and the Universe, among other things. There wasn't a lot of new information for me personally, but if you haven't read a lot of science books this book has the potential to teach you a lot. And though Impey has written textbooks, this book definitely doesn't have the feel of one. He has an intro and exit section to each chapter where he is an observer for whatever that chapter is about (for example, what it would be like to view the galaxy from outside it). I found these to be a bit distracting and not all that interesting.
Overrall, if you are just getting started reading about astronomy/science, you could pick up this book. If you have been reading these topics for awhile, you can probably skip it.
There is lots of good information in this book, so perhaps I just don't like his writing style. He explains the beginnings of the Earth, the Solar System, Stars, and the Universe, among other things. There wasn't a lot of new information for me personally, but if you haven't read a lot of science books this book has the potential to teach you a lot. And though Impey has written textbooks, this book definitely doesn't have the feel of one. He has an intro and exit section to each chapter where he is an observer for whatever that chapter is about (for example, what it would be like to view the galaxy from outside it). I found these to be a bit distracting and not all that interesting.
Overrall, if you are just getting started reading about astronomy/science, you could pick up this book. If you have been reading these topics for awhile, you can probably skip it.
October 8, 2013
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.
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.
September 8, 2015
Popular cosmology oriented more towards the astronomical side - what kinds of object are out there - than the physical. It has three parts: first, our solar system and other star systems in the Milky Way; second, other galaxies; last, the Big Bang and the origins of the universe. Really it's only the last part that justifies the book's title, since the other sections are more about the universe's present than its past, though they're all equally interesting. The scientific information is mixed with a lot of whimsical analogies and anecdotes about the history of science that I found more silly than helpful, and the explanations aren't as clear as you would expect in a book that assumes no prior knowledge. Sometimes I suspected that the author had carelessly written the opposite of what he meant to somewhere. On the other hand he goes into a lot of detail without any further obscurity beyond what I already mentioned, and since the book is extremely up-to-date (copyright 2012) that makes it unexpectedly informative on some topics, for example exoplanets.
April 1, 2013
A comprehensive book about the entire universe, structured as a journey both away from Earth in distance, and back in time. Really interesting throughout, but I have to say I was way more interested in the astronomy portion of the book (IE: the chapters about observable phenomena) rather than the later chapters to do with theoretical physics (quarks, quantum stuff, branes, string theory, etc). I guess I need to just seek out more books about the former topic.
This is definitely not a popular science book. Impey doesn't write for the uninitiated. My highschool physics and previous reading was enough to get through the first two thirds of the book but after that a lot went over my head. Luckily Impey is really good at anaologies and metaphors to illuminate some of the trickiest concepts.
I will be looking into his book about astrobiology now.
This is definitely not a popular science book. Impey doesn't write for the uninitiated. My highschool physics and previous reading was enough to get through the first two thirds of the book but after that a lot went over my head. Luckily Impey is really good at anaologies and metaphors to illuminate some of the trickiest concepts.
I will be looking into his book about astrobiology now.
July 3, 2012
A wonderful book about the creation of the universe. It travels backwards through time, from the origins of the earth and the moon, to the meaning of the singularity before the big bang. Once again, this is for people who are open-minded about how God chose to create the universe.
I found the information about dark matter and dark energy wonderful and mysterious. How incredible that 95% of the matter and energy in the universe is undetectable to our senses. While the book is not religious, I found it interesting how well the most recent scientific advances strengthen my religious belief.
By the way, it isn't a primer, and while the author strove to keep it simple, there was a great deal that I struggled to understand. Somehow, though, I couldn't put it down.
I found the information about dark matter and dark energy wonderful and mysterious. How incredible that 95% of the matter and energy in the universe is undetectable to our senses. While the book is not religious, I found it interesting how well the most recent scientific advances strengthen my religious belief.
By the way, it isn't a primer, and while the author strove to keep it simple, there was a great deal that I struggled to understand. Somehow, though, I couldn't put it down.
October 20, 2018
This is not a formal review, just essentially notes to myself.
Started reading library copy in January 2018, had to return. Will buy copy
Read Part III: Alien
started Part 1 to "Sheer Lunacy" on page 7
Will buy a copy and finish
Undefined notes for pages 32-33, 42-43, 48-49, 106-107, 224-225, 258-59, 312-13, 340-41
Finally finished 18 October 2018, a few pages here, a few pages there, on the shelf for several months. Would have read straight through but too many other things in the way.
An excellent book, with good explanations of many topics related to cosmology, especially part III. I would say that the frequent chapter openings and endings in a science-fictiony or fantasy format did not work for me. They are unnecessary distractions, but fortunately fairly short.
Started reading library copy in January 2018, had to return. Will buy copy
Read Part III: Alien
started Part 1 to "Sheer Lunacy" on page 7
Will buy a copy and finish
Undefined notes for pages 32-33, 42-43, 48-49, 106-107, 224-225, 258-59, 312-13, 340-41
Finally finished 18 October 2018, a few pages here, a few pages there, on the shelf for several months. Would have read straight through but too many other things in the way.
An excellent book, with good explanations of many topics related to cosmology, especially part III. I would say that the frequent chapter openings and endings in a science-fictiony or fantasy format did not work for me. They are unnecessary distractions, but fortunately fairly short.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 40 reviews