Katie MackResenhas

(4.5 Stars)

This book was very good. It was so helpful in explaining some pretty deep concepts in a way that is attainable, understandable, and even conversational, without talking down to the reader. The Narrator has a great cadence and really kept me engaged and interested.

I won't say that I no longer have existential dread over the end of the universe, but at least I know I'm in good company!

People who like astrophysics, science, theoretical research, or snarky strong female voices will love this book.

To explain all the ways the universe might end, this takes you through lots of astrophysical concepts. Accessible to readers as scientifically illiterate as me. I still can’t cope with Boltzmann brains, though.

Who would have guessed that contemplating the big crunch, heat death, the big rip, vacuum decay, and bounce could be so entertaining? Astrophysicist Katie Mack has devoted her life to thinking about the end of everything (that is, the universe) and has somehow maintained her humor and sense of awe. These help the reader confront that, as sure as our universe began, it will end. There’s nothing we can do to stop that happening, and the certainty that all but one of these scenarios will happen long after there are humans to be aware of it is a small comfort. (The exception, the big rip, could happen any moment but will happen faster than our nerves can pass the sensation to our brains, so no worries).
But if we can’t prevent it, why think about it? In the final chapter, Mack poses this question to several colleagues. Most admit it makes them sad, but one said: “I’m delighted that we get to live at a time in the universe when we can see dark energy and not be ripped apart by it. But that means the whole point is that you understand it, and then you enjoy it, and then . . . ‘So long and thanks for all the fish.’ Cool.”
That’s the sense this book left me with as well. The remaining disconnect between the Concordance Model in cosmology and the Standard Model in particle physics, along with the fact that weak gravity doesn’t fit well with either, isn’t disturbing but fascinating. There’s more out there to explore. And the tools we use for that, from the Large Hadron Collider deep under the Alps to the James Webb Space Telescope, are exciting, even for an interested layman who forgot the little calculus he once learned, so he takes the math on faith.
Ah yes, that troublesome word, faith. We live in a time when it’s fashionable to bash religion, contrasting it with “science,” understood as the realm of facts based on observation. Yet when Mack asks “how to make advances in areas of theory in which experimental evidence may never appear,” I wonder if these two modes of inquiry, science and theology, are as incompatible as many think. Mack concedes that arguments rage about “whether or not untestable theories should even be called science.”
Whether science or not, I’m a fan. As Carl Sagan said (quoted here by Mack): “We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.” I’m happy to be along for the ride. Although I totally get it when Mack admits the possibility that spacetime isn’t real makes her queasy.

Wow, what a book! Incredibly dense with information and incredible how much a dense person like myself could take out of this book. Introduces you to a great many aspects of modern physics and offers more than what I expected to learn. Looking forward to more books by Katie Mack!

I enjoyed this book very much. Dr. Mack takes on a huge question -- what's the fate of the Universe? -- and presents, in detail, the possibilities, the evidence for them, and the likeliest among them. To do that, she covers a good deal of the math and science in astrophysics and cosmology.

She writes very clearly. She's got a great nerd sense of humor. She's also passionately, genuinely interested in her field and in the work that she does. That shines in her book.

I especially enjoy good science writing. Dr. Mack is as good at explaining cosmology as Stephen Hawking and Carl Sagan were.

I hope she publishes more for a general audience.

What a fascinating read about a possible end to our universe! While “fantastic” may be the wrong word, this book is about the end of all life.

The author wrote the book in a captivating and engaging manner, making complex astrophysical concepts accessible to anyone, regardless of their level of knowledge. Dr. Mack’s writing style is simple, clear, and humorous, which makes this non-fiction book an enjoyable read despite the somewhat grim topic.

Many people are interested in end-of-world theories, although they cannot be confirmed empirically. As a result, these are considered fascinating mind games rather than serious hypotheses.

Read more of those theories and my full review on my book blog "www.wordsandfiction.com"

Easily one of my favorite books. Wonderfully written, the right balance of depth and ease of understanding, and profoundly poignant about our space (and time) in the universe.

Either with a whimper or a bang, and, as God-Man recently said, I swear, if they weren't already so close to extinction...

This book explores a number of different scenarios for the end of the universe. Each is a current theory and Dr. Mack goes into non-mathematical explanations for how and why it would happen.

The book is enlightening and enjoyable.

First of all, no I didn't understand anything in this book. But that didn't bother me because it was such a fun read. Yes the author is a serious physicist and yes she knows how to do the math. But more important, while imparting serious information about what we know (and don't know) about the eventual death of the universe, she keeps it entertaining. Loads of ironic parenthetical comments, long humorous footnotes, and ample quotations and references to SciFi help lighten the load.

Yay libraries!

This is a book for laypeople, and I think it succeeds remarkably well, considering. And what a grand endeavor. If you are curious about what science people think about how the universe might end, this is your book right here. The author is very good at discussing the sometimes bewildering aspects of figuring that out in ways most of us can parse. I knew some of this; I am a science fan. I peruse any area of science that interests me. But I wanted to be an astronomer for awhile there, so space and cosmology and astrophysics own a a fair chunk of mental real estate, despite my poor eyesight and my limited mathematics education.

FYI, the text takes up 76% of this book, followed by acknowledgements, about the author, and the index. Do read her footnotes at the end of each chapter! :)

This is a really fun non-fiction book! I have always loved reading science non-fiction books, especially ones about space, and so this was right up my alley. The science is written in a very approachable way, and Mack injects humor into the book to make it easy to read. (Make sure to read the footnotes. That's where a lot of the humor ended up.)½

Sometimes it's good to just scream thinking about the end of everything, cause then when it's all said and done you can get back to the business of living in the now.

Wow.

What a fantastic book. Katie Mack is funny, yes. Her sense of humor about the cosmos and our understanding of its inner workings makes it all more enjoyable to read about. Her sense of awe at the wonderous beauty of nature and its weird rules is infectious.

I think the most impressive part of this book is the way that she explains in clear and concise prose some of the most arcane concepts of modern cosmology. Yes the universe will end but you'll feel better about it after reading this book. You will walk away with a much deeper insight into the modern state of our understanding as well. That is no mean feat.

You will find no advice on how to escape an inescapable heat death here, but once you have read her work you won't mind the inevitability of it all - or at least not as much.

Astrophysicist Katie Mack writes about the life of the cosmos, like, the whole cosmos from its beginning to its theoretical ends—what we know, what we sort of know, and what the science tells us might happen—and it's mostly accessible to the layperson if you have some interest in astronomy to begin with.

And I love the witty science humor that comes out in every chapter. I guess the inevitable destruction of everything can't keep Katie Mack from cracking jokes. In fact, I remember Stephen Hawking had similar humor in his books. Must be an astrophysicist thing. I suppose it makes sense. It's no fun being a serious scientist all the time.

Full Disclosure: I wrote the author's Wikipedia article. I am not a disinterested party. And this is not only one of the best science books I've ever read, it's one of the best as well as one of the most marvelous books I've ever read. (I'd go for the Big Rip myself.)

In a little over 200 pages, Katie Mack walked me through time from the Big Bang to the Heat Death of the universe. She also walks readers through much of physics as presently known. That's incredible, frankly, but there's more: Mack writes snappy prose and leavens her lessons with humor that is sometimes mordant and sometimes whimsical. I laughed a lot reading this book, and how often can one say they laughed reading a book about possible ways the universe will end? or a book about the general theory of relativity? or a book about the second law of thermodynamics? (Well, that last one could become a fairly humorous book.) Mack explains these and other topics without resorting to even the simple mathematics most popular science books include. This is simply a great read and a great way to gain a basic understanding of physics and how it works. I especially appreciated her explanations of the cosmological constant, which I had been fuzzy on before reading her book, dark matter and dark energy. Physics-it's fun!

wow. this is fascinating, and discussed in a mostly understandable manner. it makes me wish i'd gone deeper into physics because it is so, so interesting. i probably didn't get as much out of it as i could have, and would have done better if i hadn't listened to this, but read it instead. (and i understand i would have gotten some graphs/diagrams, too, which i would have appreciated.) still, in this book she writes well, makes complex issues relatively simple, is intriguing and even funny, which is not what i expected from a book about the end of the universe.

i really loved the discussion of time, which has always been so interesting to me. (i've always said "time is a vortex" but i guess that's not quite right. still all kinds of wild, though.) thinking of time as having more than one dimension is pretty amazing. maybe that's not the right way to describe it, but looking at things further and further away in space, we are seeing things that are older and older (time is correlated to distance in space!), so if you look far enough away, you can actually see evidence of the big bang. how amazing and cool is that?!??!! and while we are made of stardust, we are also made of the byproducts of the big bang!

all of this is seriously absolutely enthralling.½

From the Big Bang to . . . the Big Crunch? Heat Death? The Big Rip? Vacuum Decay? Bounce?

After the Big Bang, several events and systems come into play, including the Cosmic Microwave Background, Planck Time, the Grand Unified Theory, Cosmic Inflation, and quarks. Perhaps we need a Theory of Everything to help us determine exactly what the future of the future might be.

Theoretical astrophysicist Katie Mack takes readers into the universe from its birth pangs to its several possible, gruesome doomsday scenarios. Along the way, readers contemplate the expanding universe, singularities, the collapsing universe, dark matter, entropy, black holes, spiral galaxies, cosmic fireballs . . . and the finality of the cataclysmic death of the universe.

The author’s expertise is readily apparent as the science communicated here touches on quantum mechanics, cosmology, string theory, the cosmic dawn, galaxies, and more . . . all presented in an intelligible, clever, entertaining dialogue sprinkled with just the right amount of astrophysical terminology. There are no long, complex mathematical equations spread over multiple pages, just a compelling, engaging conversation about what the future might hold, astrophysically speaking.

There’s a lot to digest here with concepts that might be brand new to some readers. Yet each one, understandably presented, is comprehensible even for those who are not conversant with theoretical astrophysics or the evolution of the cosmos. The author’s enthusiasm and candor, the esoteric phenomena, and the complex science all combine to immerse the reader in the brilliance of science, theory, and discovery.

Highly recommended . . . don't miss this one.

If you’ve ever wondered how the universe might end, let Dr. Katie Mack guide you through the various scenarios. Pick your poison: heat death, vacuum decay, the Big Crunch, the Big Rip (in the fabric of spacetime), and the Bounce. All of these are explained in as simple a manner as one can get when it comes to theoretical astrophysics. Mack uses a lot of analogies and metaphors, as well as a few charts and diagrams, to help get her points across. And the whole discussion is buoyed along by Mack’s obvious enthusiasm for the subject matter and her knack for getting other physicists to explain why they get excited about working in this field. It makes the book surprisingly cheerful for one that talks about the destruction of the universe as we know it.

This is a short book with a lot of information packed into it, much like a neutron star. So if you’re interested in the very latest theories about how the universe will end, and how the research into this topic informs other areas of science, pick this up.

Take your pick: heat death, the big crunch, the big rip, or vacuum decay
Katie Mack writes clearly with a taste for puns and other witticisms, about possible scenarios for the end of the universe. The types of ending depend on values of certain parameters, like the cosmic constant that defines the rate of expansion, the thermonuclear equation of state, and the not very reassuring concepts of quantum mechanics (there could be right now a quantum tunneling effect that pushes the Higgs field to the true vacuum state, and that state expands outward at the speed of light, converting everything into nothing). Dr. Mack at the end wonders if the theorizing is important, since there is nothing humans could do to avoid these futures, and most of them are trillions of years in the future. She concludes that the idea that simple rules of physics and math can lead to such grand speculation is in itself worthwhile.

Big Crunch, Heat Death, Big Rip, vacuum decay, cyclic bouncing -- all these end-of-the-universe scenarios have been well discussed in other authors' books, but Mack uses them as a framework for an introduction to scientific cosmology in general. The level is decidedly popular, the style is sometimes a bit jocular, and the length is by no means too great. The author's knowledge is solid, and the coverage is completely up to date.

Some introductory stuff, but that's to be expected. Any time a science communicator talks about the CMB, you know the pigeon stories are coming up. I just quickly zipped through the noob stuff, it gets interesting.

NF