Hardcover, 384 pages
English language
Published Feb. 18, 2020 by Allen Lane.
From the world-renowned physicist and bestselling author of The Elegant Universe and The Fabric of the Cosmos, a captivating exploration of deep time and humanity's search for purpose
In both time and space, the cosmos is astoundingly vast, and yet is governed by simple, elegant, universal mathematical laws.
On this cosmic timeline, our human era is spectacular but fleeting. Someday, we know, we will all die. And, we know, so too will the universe itself.
Until the End of Time is Brian Greene's breathtaking new exploration of the cosmos and our quest to understand it. Greene takes us on a journey across time, from our most refined understanding of the universe's beginning, to the closest science can take us to the very end. He explores how life and mind emerged from the initial chaos, and how our minds, in coming to understand their own impermanence, seek in different ways …
From the world-renowned physicist and bestselling author of The Elegant Universe and The Fabric of the Cosmos, a captivating exploration of deep time and humanity's search for purpose
In both time and space, the cosmos is astoundingly vast, and yet is governed by simple, elegant, universal mathematical laws.
On this cosmic timeline, our human era is spectacular but fleeting. Someday, we know, we will all die. And, we know, so too will the universe itself.
Until the End of Time is Brian Greene's breathtaking new exploration of the cosmos and our quest to understand it. Greene takes us on a journey across time, from our most refined understanding of the universe's beginning, to the closest science can take us to the very end. He explores how life and mind emerged from the initial chaos, and how our minds, in coming to understand their own impermanence, seek in different ways to give meaning to experience: in story, myth, religion, creative expression, science, the quest for truth, and our longing for the timeless, or eternal. Through a series of nested stories that explain distinct but interwoven layers of reality-from the quantum mechanics to consciousness to black holes-Greene provides us with a clearer sense of how we came to be, a finer picture of where we are now, and a firmer understanding of where we are headed.
Yet all this understanding, which arose with the emergence of life, will dissolve with its conclusion. Which leaves us with one realization: during our brief moment in the sun, we are tasked with the charge of finding our own meaning.
Let us embark.
Starts good but falls off a bit in the second half. There are countless of interesting as well as thought-provoking ideas. I'd just make it a bit shorter, because it sometimes seems you're reading in circles.
Meh. So meh I might even downgrade to two stars (edit: I did). I mean there are some interesting things explained, but I don’t feel like Greene got anywhere close to the grand theory of physics and art he clearly wants to find. He’s just not an art guy, and that’s all I get from his attempts to explore it. There are many other books I would recommend reading about the topics he touches on, except maybe the physics. Greene knows how to explain physics. He doesn’t know how to explain the other disciplines explored here. So for now I would say, skip this book, read his other books, and read the books of the people he cites, who do a better job of explaining the ideas in their own areas of expertise.
