Is There Life On Mars? The 20 Big Universe Questions

The Big Questions

by Stuart Clark

The Big Questions series enables renowned experts to tackle the 20 most fundamental and frequently asked questions of a major branch of science or philosophy. Each 3000-word essay simply and concisely examines a question that has eternally perplexed enquiring minds, providing answers from history's great thinkers. This ambitious project is a unique distillation of humanity's best ideas.
In Big Questions: The Universe, Dr Stuart Clark tackles the 20 key questions of astronomy and cosmology: What is the universe? How big is the universe? How old is the universe? What are stars made from? How did the Universe form? Why do the planets stay in orbit? Was Einstein right? What are black holes? How did the Earth form? What were the first celestial objects? What is dark matter? What is dark energy? Are we really made from stardust? Is there life on Mars? Are there other intelligent beings? Can we travel through time and space? Can the laws of physics change? Are there alternative universes? What will be the fate of the universe? Is there cosmological evidence for God?

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Astronomy, Physics, Space, Philosophy

290 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2010

About the author

Journalist, award-winning author and broadcaster, Stuart Clark is a brilliant storyteller. Fiction or non-fiction, his work is written with conviction and with passion. In recent years, he has devoted his career to presenting the complex and dynamic world of astronomy to the general public.

His latest work is the pioneering trilogy The Sky's Dark Labyrinth. In the way that CJ Sansom's hugely successful Shardlake series marries crime writing with popular history, so The Sky's Dark Labyrinth trilogy blends gripping, original historical fiction with popular science.

Stuart holds a first-class honours degree and a phd in astrophysics. A Visiting Fellow at the University of Hertfordshire, he is a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and a former Vice Chair of the Association of British Science Writers. But it was his first work of narrative nonfiction, The Sun Kings, that established him as a popular science writer par excellence. Without fail the reviews, ranging from Nature to Bookslut.com, remarked on his exceptional storytelling ability and sheer verve of his writing. It was shortlisted by the Royal Society for their 2008 general science book prize, it won Italy's 2009 Montselice Prize for best scientific translation, and the Association of American Publishers 2007 Professional and Scholarly Publishing Award for Excellence in the Cosmology and Astronomy category.

Stuart is a regular contributor to national and international radio and television programmes and dvd productions. He frequently lectures throughout the UK and, increasingly, throughout the world.

Reviews

[Book Shark · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Big Questions: The Universe by Stuart Clark

"The Big Questions: The Universe" is a part of a good series in science and philosophy that answers some of the biggest inquiries about our world in an accessible and concise manner. This installation attempts to answer twenty questions about the wonders of the Universe. The book lacks depth and there are better books on the same genre but there is enough here to whet the appetite. This straightforward 209-page book addresses the following twenty questions: 1. What is the Universe?, 2. How Big is the Universe?, 3. How Old is the Universe?, 4. What Are Stars Made From?, 5. How Did the Earth Form?, 6. Why do Planets Stay in Orbit?, 7. Was Einstein Right?, 8. What Is a Black Hole?, 9. How Did the Universe Form?, 10. What Were the First Celestial Objects?, 11. What is Dark Matter?, 12. What is Dark Energy?, 13. Are We Made from Stardust?, 14. Is There Life on Mars?, 15. Are There Other Intelligent Beings?, 16. Can We Travel Through Time and Space?, 17. Can the Laws of Physics Change?, 18. Are There Alternative Universes?, 19. What Will Be the Fate of the Universe?, and 20. Is There Cosmological Evidence for God?

Positives:
1. Straightforward prose. Accessible and concise.
2. A fascinating topic, the big questions about the universe. The author does a wonderful job of selecting twenty representative questions.
3. Mr. Clark does a good job of conveying to the audience what we know to the best of our current knowledge versus what we don't know and why that is. "Once the quasar eventually dies down, it becomes an ordinary galaxy with a dormant central black hole. Cosmologists believe that the Universe built its current quota of galaxies in this way. But the nature of the first step of the sequence- the origin of the collections of a few million stars - remains elusive."
4. Facts sprinkled through the entire book. "The thickness of the Milky Way's stellar disc is estimated to be about 1000 light years, one light year being simply the distance that light travels in a year."
5. Find out the most accurate form of determining distances between celestial bodies.
6. Applied science. "After decades of laboratory work to understand the effects of ionization, correction factors have allowed us to arrive at the correct cosmic abundance of elements: 74 percent hydrogen, 24 percent helium, and two percent all the other chemical elements."
7. Understanding how tides works.
8. The essence of science in one sentence. "No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong." Albert Einstein
9. Find out how the heaviest of atoms are formed.
10. Galaxy formation.
11. Dark matter and dark energy. "Dark matter was introduced to solve the movement of galaxies; dark energy was invoked to solve the accelerated expansion of the whole Universe."
12. There is awe and wonder on the stars. "All the elements we find on Earth, with the possible exception of hydrogen, were created by nucleosynthesis (nuclear fusion reactions) inside the cores of stars." Great stuff!
13. A fun look at life on Mars. Is anyone out there? "Following on from Drake's early attempts, the current era of search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) was provisionally launched in 1971 when NASA commissioned a study into the design for the ultimate SETI telescope."
14. Put on your seat belts..."The record holder for the fastest manmade object is the spacecraft Helios 2; launched in 1976, it reached speeds of about 250,000 kilometers per-hour (155,000 miles per hour) during a series of close fly-bys of the Sun."
15. Interesting philosophical questions about the laws of physics. "Most physicists believe that the best candidate for a theory of everything is string theory."
16. A look at the fate of the universe...always an interesting subject. Spoiler alert, "The majority of astronomers now believe that the most likely fate for the Universe is to expand forever and suffer a heat death."
17. The last chapter may be the most interesting. Is there cosmological evidence for god?
18. Includes a helpful glossary.

Negatives:
1. This book is intended to be a concise and basic look at cosmology and so don't expect an in-depth look at any particular topic of interest.
2. There are better books that cover this topic in more depth while remaining accessible. Brian Cox provides some excellent books on this genre. Please look at my further recommendations.
3. More visual aid would have added value. An example: a global timeline.
4. The chapter on Black Holes left a little to be desired.
5. No notes or formal bibliography.

In summary, this is a basic book. Personally, this was a good refresher. It's an accessible book that covers twenty representative questions about our universe. If you know very little about astronomy, cosmology or how the universe came to be well this book will help in whetting your appetite. There are better books on this topic but this one holds up well. Average at worst, good at best.

Further suggestions: "Wonders of the Universe" and "The Quantum Universe" by Brian Cox, "A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing" by Lawrence M. Krauss, "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan, "Why Does the World Exist?: An Existential Detective Story" by Jim Holt, "The Age of Everything: How Science Explores the Past" by Mathew Hedman, "The Cosmic Landscape: String Theory and the Illusion of Intelligent Design" by Leonard Susskind, "The Grand Design" by Stephen Hawking, "Unraveling the Universe's Mysteries" by Louis A. Del Monte, "Higgs Discovery: The Power of Empty Space (Kindle Single)" by Lisa Higgs, "The Fallacy of Fine-Tuning: Why the Universe Is Not Designed for Us" by Victor J. Stenger, "About Time: Cosmology and Culture at the Twilight of the Big Bang" by Adam Frank, "The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory" by Brain Greene, "The Laws of Thermodynamics: A Very Short Introduction" by Peter Atkins, "From Hither to Yon" by Rich Cohen, and "Spectrums" by David Blatner.

[Benjamin Stahl · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well-written, concisely focussed crash-course on a range of scientific questions. Stuart Clark, a renowned British astronomer and writer, explores a range of intriguing issues faced by the scientific community at large regarding our often literally incredible universe. The title of the book itself is somewhat misleading: only a small percentage of the book specifically looks at Mars and the question of life. Likewise, other selling points like “Is there cosmological evidence for God?” are not elaborated on nearly as much as they need to be. He does shed some interesting light on certain other subjects though. I had no idea any serious scientific research was actually concerned - let alone ongoing - with such outlandish topics as time travel and alternative universes.

[Noura Noman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Explaining the physics of the universe is never an easy task but Clarke tries hard to make it as uncomplicated as possible.

[Caroline · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book so much that, despite being halfway through at the time, I bought my own copy off Amazon.

[kb · Rating 3 out of 5]

The concise text deceived me. Still quite a challenging read with all the concepts I had to make trips to Professor Google for. But I had fun remembering science things~





Here are all the books I read in 2019! :)

[Johan Syahriz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stuart Clark did we very well done job explaining physics and how the universe works. However, despite reading many topics about String theory and M-theory my tiny mortal brain has not been able to comprehend it. My brain just can't imagine it and therefore cannot fully understand it and I bet most scientist also have no idea how higher dimensions work but still manage to keep on getting into it.

[DucTran · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tưởng chừng mỗi chương sách bàn về một vấn đề riêng trong thiên văn học nhưng mọi thứ lại rất logic với nhau và được sắp xếp theo một thứ tự hợp lí khiến bạn đọc dễ dàng nắm được mối liên kết. Cách giải thích dễ hiểu, không quá học thuật. Nếu so với những cuốn của Stephen Hawking thì theo mình cách viết của Stuark Clark phù hợp với những độc giả vốn không có quá nhiều nền tảng thiên văn học.

[Choxley0 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Easy to read for people not in the area of cosmology

[Tran Quyet · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cơ bản nhất của ngành khoa học liên quan đến vũ trụ, giải thích mọi thứ liên quan đến nó.

[Sam Way · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mind. Blown.

[Pierce Banks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very Interesting

[Mabrouck · Rating 4 out of 5]

Big Questions - L'Univers se présente sous la forme de 20 questions, autant d'articles, pour permettre au lecteur d'acquérir des bases et de faire le point sur les connaissances en matière d'astrophysique. Qu'est-ce que l'univers ? Quel âge a-t-il ? Existe-t-il des univers parallèles ? Très bien vulgarisé, ce livre permet, entre autres, de faire le lien entre les équations de Newton, la théorie de la relativité générale d'Einstein et la théorie des super-cordes. Ca m'a aussi permis de résoudre un vieux contentieux avec la revue "La Recherche" dans laquelle je ne comprenais jamais, adolescent, pourquoi ils disaient qu'on avait trouvé une galaxie très ancienne parce que son spectre était décalé vers le rouge (et ça les gars, je peux vous dire que ça m'a frustré des années). Un vrai plaisir à lire (c'est vraiment abordable) et l'objet est sympa (le bouquin se présente un peu comme un cahier moleskine)

[Alok · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book for lapsed physics majors. It steers clear of math, but you can still get a lot out of this book if you being your physics intuition. For example, you may remember that the universe is expanding, but do you know the history and evidence for that? I learned a bunch of cosmology/ astronomy, though I was starting from very little. If you already know how to date a globular cluster using the main sequence turnoff, this book is not for you, but for the rest of us it's a great overview.

[Fahri Karahan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Evren, hayat ve fizik hakkında bir özet yapılmış. Bazı noktalar doğal olarak açık bırakılmış. Belki bazı konularda daha açıklayıcı bir tutum alınabilirdi. Sonuç kısmında daha ziyade felsefeye girilmiş bu kısım özellikle bir miktar daha uzatılmalıydı. Başka benzer kitaplarla birlikte okunmalı tek başına bu kitapla yeterli bilgiye sahip olamıyorsunuz. Hiç Yoktan Bir Evren ve Zamanın Kısa Tarihini önerebilirim.

[Stu Hall · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fairly clear introduction. Has a mistake on page 37 where it says carbon has 16 protons and there are a couple of typos that I also noticed. However, the ISBN on my book is different (97818486600946), so perhaps it has since been corrected!

[Seth Buren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent series, good for someone who hasn't studied the universe to great depth, but still specific enough knowledge to learn lots of new things. Written well, good binding and the pages have a very nice feel.

[Dane Mamula · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book doesn't go into much depth, but a decent intro for those interested in some new topics in cosmology.

[Angus MacHaggis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very guid!!!

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book that covers the basics for beginners, and it's easy to understand and without math!

[Aaron Wong · Rating 3 out of 5]

A rare talent who can makes the amazingly difficult easy to understand. Bravo.

[Count Vamira · Rating 5 out of 5]

From the big bang to M-theory. This book does cover most subjects that have kept cosmologists and astro physicists busy. Not as much fun as Stephen Hawkings books, but still a good book.

[Neil Aplin · Rating 5 out of 5]

at last, it's beginning to make sense - so much I thought I would never get my head around!