Rating: 
Summary: Expansive Insight
Review: "There are three great frontiers in science: the very big, the very small and the very complex. Cosmology involves them all." - Sir Martin Rees.
It takes sound grasp, knowledge and intellect to explain with clarity and simplicity. Sir Martin Rees achieves this here. He provides a useful, absorbing and accessible contribution to lay understanding of cosmology, astrophysics, mathematical astrophysics and so on.
In explaining why a 'Big Bang' (or 'Expansion') might account for our universe, Martin Rees pins his exposition around six key properties: 2 relating to basic forces, 2 to scale and structure, and 2 describing space.
By the end of this book you will understand more about cosmology and how it relates to chemistry, Newton's laws, the general theory of relativity, quantum mechanics, superstring & membrane theory, the search for a Grand Unification Theory, and so on.
Sir Martin also admits what remains to be discovered and how this might refine or deflate the 'Big Bang'. He also explores alternate theories and challenges (but does not here address 'Plasma Cosmology' or the revived interest in 'scalar particles'. However, due to the rate of new ideas entering the field since any such book's publication, this kind of omission is inevitable). Mercifully he does not embrace or expound any facile drivel of the 'Goddidit' variety.
If you wish to broaden or deepen your comprehension of cosmology, you will develop fascinating insights and a more encompassing horizon on the subject here.
Rating: 
Summary: JUST a little book that explains A BIG TOPIC!!
Review: +++++
This eleven chapter book (with seven excellent illustrations) by U.K. Astronomer Royal (a title bestowed upon a distinguished astronomer) Sir Martin Rees is about the following:
(1) Cosmology (branch of astronomy concerned with the origin, properties, and evolution of the universe)
(2) Theoretical cosmology (that establishes models which attempt to describe the universe's observed properties)
(3) Speculative cosmology (which is based on hypotheses).
These are large topics that can be incredibly complex and detailed but Rees manages to explain these topics in only 160 pages! As well, the language involved in explaining these topics can be very technical but Rees manages to reduce the technicality resulting in a book that's easy to follow and thus that's "intended for general readers."
I agree that this deceptively concise book is written for the general reader. However, for those not used to this kind of material, I suggest reading this book slowly since Rees cuts out extraneous detail. Whether you are used to this kind of material or not, you'll find that this book offers a stimulating and accessible account of new discoveries, and perceptive insights into cosmology. In fact, this book is so well-written, that according to Rees' internet site, this book is being considered for translation into twenty languages!
Rees, in the last paragraph of this book, summarizes its contents: "A theme of this book has been the intimate links between the microworld and the cosmos...Our everyday world...[shaped] by subatomic forces...owes its existence to our universe's well-tuned expansion rate, the processes of galaxy formation, the forging of carbon and oxygen in ancient stars, and so forth. A few basic physical laws set the 'rules'; our [universe's] emergence from a simple Big Bang was sensitive to six 'cosmic numbers.' Had [any one of] these numbers not been 'well-tuned' [or precise enough], the gradual unfolding of layer upon layer of [the universe's] complexity would have been [suppressed]." That is, "there would have been no stars and no life."
This book has a framework that is centered around the above six cosmic numbers or as Rees states: "[T]his book is the story of six [numbers] that are crucial for our universe, and our [that is, biological life's] place in it." What are these six numbers? Three of them relate to forces in the universe (two of these numbers are basic forces while one of them deals with an "unsuspected new force"); one number is concerned with the basic "texture" of the universe; and two deal with the properties of space itself. As already mentioned, all these numbers have a precise value that allow our universe (and us) to exist. Rees asks: "Is this [precision] just...a coincidence? Or is it providence of a benign Creator?"
Besides learning about these six critical numbers, the reader will learn much more. Some other things you'll learn about are antimatter, atomic structure, atoms, neutrinos, quarks, the periodoc table, the importance of hydrogen, deuterium, and helium, biological evolution, dark matter, black holes, cosmic background radiation, protoplanets and planets, galactic clusters, the strong nuclear force, extraterrestrial intelligence, particle physics, quantum theory, relativity theory, supernovae, and superstring theory. You'll read about such people as Einstein, Arthur Eddington, Michael Faraday, Richard Feynman, Galileo, Newton, Stephen Hawking, Fred Hoyle, and Edwin Hubble.
At the end of the book, Rees asks more questions: "Are there an infinity of other universes [called collectively the 'multiverse'] that are "badly tuned," and therefore sterile? Is our universe an "oasis" in a mutiverse? Should we seek out other reasons for the...values of our six [cosmic] numbers?"
My only minor complaint (and I'm nit-picking here) is that in chapter one Rees states the value of one of these six cosmic numbers. (It is a one followed by 36 zeros.) Instead of expressing this number in scientific notation, he actually writes out all the zeros. I reasoned that by doing this he was attempting to convey a sense of the immensity of this number. However, in chapter three he does the same thing. Why? Writing this long number out once was quite sufficient.
In conclusion, this book offers an accessible account of the forces that shape -- everything. You'll find this book to be an enjoyable and provocative intellectual adventure!
+++++
Rating:
Summary: Just 6 words...?
Review: 6 words: This book blew my bloody mind!
Rating:
Summary: a Cosmological " What If" book
Review: For the universe to be as the universe is, the author traces this fact to the happenstance of six numbers or ratios, of forces. Examples of this forces are, gravity, nuclear binding force, weak and strong force, density of the universe etc. The author's thinking is something like this, If gravity was stronger the big bang would have spent its outward force already and be contracting. A two-billion year cyclical universe would not have the time to form planets, or for life to form. If gravity was less strong then planets would not have appeared. The author proceeds through each ratio, considering the min and max values. Vary too much from the present ratio and we would not exist, or life, the earth or the universe would not exist. Interesting concept. The surprising thing is the narrow range of some of the values. It shows that we exist from a combination of these numbers within such a narrow range that it borders on the miraculous that we exist at all. Is this. an argument for infinite universes with infinite chances to form or a universe built upon a master plan ?
Rating: 
Summary: Jottings of an old hand
Review: I was disappointed by this book. I realised that Martin Rees is an experienced distinguished scientist and I hoped that his insight and experience would shine thru in Six Numbers. I feel it doesn't. The book feels like something written quickly to satisfy a publication deadline...written without passion...perhaps dictated in the shower with the details being filled in afterwards. I didn't find the central argument, that the numbers are too fortunate to have come about by chance, convincing.
Rating:
Summary: Good scientific reading, unsupported metaphysical conclusion
Review: Interesting book on Cosmology. It describes the current situation well: the values of many of the basic physical constants in our Universe are critical to the existence of life and ourselves (the Anthropic Principle). Rees chooses six of these constants (he could have taken more) and explains in detail why they are critical. Five are interesting and up to date. The sixth (3 dimensions) is a little disappointing, and has been discussed in length, in the same context, for more than a century. The arguments given in the book could also be taken as clues for the existence of God, but the author prefers the hypothesis of infinite universes. It's interesting to see that Occam's razor, which was used once against God's existence, is now against the multiverse theory, which multiplies entities to infinity. Rees simply answers that Occam's razor may not be applicable at this level! In any case, God's existence and the multiverse hypothesis are both outside science, for they cannot be falsified. This means that the book, although purporting to be science, ends in a metaphysical conclusion. Good reading, anyway, though one may not agree with the conclusion.
Rating:
Summary: The Number of our Universe
Review: It has long been debated in science and philosophy as to whether pure mathematics underlies the functioning of our universe. Mr. Rees does not really address this question in his book. What he does, however, is show how our understanding of the universe is based on numbers that have to be very finely tuned indeed for our universe to be the way it is. Just six numbers, in fact.This is a very intriguing book. Rees gives a good introduction to many of the most fundamental things in science--forces like gravity and electromagnetism, the formation and structure of matter, cosmic expansion and many other things. Moreover, he is not afraid to give these concepts symbol and number and show how these values are determined by theory and observation. Most importantly, he then goes on to discuss how variations in these numbers by even very slight amounts in most cases would lead to a very different universe from the one in which we currently find ourselves. This does much to strengthen many of the arguments he makes concerning those parts of modern scientific theory that is mainly speculation. If there is a weakness in this book, it is in the author's decision to frame his discussion around symbols and numbers. As a physicist and mathematician, I myself am quite comfortable with it but some readers might be frightened off by these Greek letters and numbers that are often so large or small as to be effectively meaningless. Even more so since these symbols and numbers are so far from what even a high school educated reader might come across in a math or physics class. It might have been more effective to link these ideas up to some concepts a high school educated person might have seen before. Still, it is part of Rees' purpose, I think, to take us to the cutting edge of physics and cosmology without trudging through every detail. He wants to give us a taste of what are some of the most exciting and thought-provoking things happening today. This is a fair purpose and one that he achieves very well in only 161 pages. It is certainly worth a read.
Rating:
Summary: Six key physical constants and their significance
Review: Leading cosmologist Martin Rees here provides an overview of present thinking about the origin and nature of the universe, using six key numbers (the ratio of electromagnetic force to gravitational force, the strength of nuclear binding, the density of the universe, the cosmological constant, the variations in density of the universe, and the number of spatial dimensions). Based on the title, I expected the book to focus tightly on these numbers; however, Rees rather tends to use them as a jumping-off point to address broader issues, which I think is all to the good. For example, he uses N (imagine a fancy script version), the relative strength of the electromagnetic and gravitational forces, as a starting point for discussing how gravity molds the universe despite its relative weakness. He's a believer in the weak anthropic principle, meaning that he thinks that our universe is uniquely suited to letting life come into existence. His corollary is that there are very many universes, each with its own physical laws, but only a few tuned well enough to support life. Like all grand theories of cosmology, it is a breathtaking concept. Recommended for any intelligent layman wanting to learn more about current thinking about the universe.
Rating:
Summary: Very Interesting
Review: The Astronomer Royal (the Queen's own?) seems to take seriously Linde's chaotic inflation and the idea that our universe is just one among countless others in a "multiverse." I find it significant that even so great an authority as Steve Weinberg does not dismiss it out of hand. The notion that our universe is finite and has a beginning in time is of course no longer speculation. But the idea that there are other universes out there with totally different fundamental constants and probably different number (some many more than ours) of dimensions as well is just so hard to fathom. It's mind-boggling to me how anyone can prove or disprove it; yet here it is and it's not a crackpot idea from some harebrained science-fiction writers. Sir Martin is a very eminent astronomer - far more credible than Carl Sagan even. But if you look back on the astronomical discoveries in the past two millennia, clearly our place in the universe/multiverse has been found to be less and less unique. First we were found to be no longer the only planet, then no longer the planet in the center of the solar system, then no longer the only solar system, then no longer the solar system in the center, then no longer the only galaxy, then no longer the galaxy in the center (because the universe has no center).....and now, perhaps, no longer the only universe. It's all so logical. Sir Martin seems to think, surprisingly given what he now believes, that intelligent life may be rare in the universe. I for one cannot believe that life, intelligent or not, is rare in our universe, and if there are other universes out there, the odds are considerably higher still. (The Drake Equation suggests there are billions of planets in our universe alone with intelligent lifeforms, and many millions in our galaxy alone.) Perhaps he doesn't want to be taken for a mad scientist encouraging "raelians", ufologists, X-file enthusiasts, "abductees" and other such idiots. The damage it can do to his career is all too real. But all he has to do is to draw a clear distinction between the odds for life, and in particular intelligent life, in other worlds on the one hand, and the odds that any of them have visited us on the other. Again, I think the odds are very high for the former, but almost certainly nil for the latter. In any case, the possibility of our finding these lifeforms is not very high, since considering the distances involved our space technology is still in the Stone Age. Interestingly, the religious implications are profound if we are indeed living in a multiverse in which our own universe is merely one among countless others, all very different from one another. It may be impossible to prove the origin of such a multiverse, if in fact it even has a beginning. Perhaps the multiverse has always been there, more or less unchanging except at local levels. Or perhaps the multiverse itself has a beginning, and is again only one among countless others. Either way, the role of a Creator cannot be proven - perhaps never can be. No math is needed to read this book, but it can still be heavy going for the uninitiated, despite its deceptive shortness. Have an astronomy dictionary handy, or else be very patient and careful when following his arguments. Referring back to his earlier book "Before the Beginning" may be a good idea, as is looking things up in an introductory astronomy textbook. If you're still stuck, skip & move on to other interesting topics. Eventually the pieces will fall into place. If not, it may not be your fault, but you're out of luck because Martin John Rees is one of the clearest & most admired educators in astronomy and astrophysics for laypeople.
Rating:
Summary: Challenging, informative reading for science buffs.
Review: The author of this book, Sir Martin Rees, is the Royal Society Research Professor at Cambridge University and holds the title of Astronomer Royal. One must assume, then, that the arguments that he puts forward in this book represent the very best thinking of what is to me a very esoteric science. He apologies for the slow gestation of this book, written especially for the Science Masters series. But in my mind he need not apologise as has completed a formidable assignment - that of explaining in everyday terms some of the leading-edge theories in the realm of cosmology. In this book Sir Martin shows how just six numbers, imprinted in the 'big bang', determine the essential features of the physical cosmos. He also shows that cosmic evolution is highly sensitive to the values of these numbers and that if any one of them were 'untuned' there could be no stars and no life. Or at least not in the way that we know them today. So what are these six fundamental numbers? The first is a ratio of the strength of the electrical forces that hold atoms together divided by the force of gravity between them. It is very large, about 1036, and were it a few zeros shorter, only a short-lived miniature universe could exist and there would be no time for biological evolution. The second number is also a ratio and is the proportion of energy that is released when hydrogen fuses into helium. This number is 0.007, and if it were 0.006 or 0.008 we could not exist. The third number, also a ratio, relates the actual density of matter in the universe to a 'critical' density. At first sight this number appears to be about 0.4. If this ratio were too high the universe would have collapsed long ago: if too low, galaxies or stars would not have formed. The fourth number, only recently discovered, is a cosmic 'antigravity' and appears to control the expansion of the universe even though it has no discernible effect on scales less than a billion light years. The fifth number is the ratio of the energy required to break apart a galaxy compared to its 'rest mass energy' and is about 10-5. If this ratio were smaller the universe would be inert and structureless: if much larger the universe would be so violent that no stars or sun systems could survive. The sixth number, surprisingly, is the number of spatial dimensions in our world (3). Life could not exist if this was 2 or 4. In this book Sir Martin discusses each of the above and develops reasons for the limits that he gives. He postulates that perhaps there are some connections between these numbers but states that at the moment we cannot predict any one of them from the values of the others. Perhaps a 'theory of everything' will eventually yield a formula that interrelates them. More thought provoking is Sir Martin's discussion of what or who 'tuned' these numbers. He identifies three scenarios. One is the hard-headed approach of 'we could not exist if these numbers weren't adjusted in this special way: we manifestly are here, so there's nothing to be surprised about'. Another is that the 'tuning' of these numbers is evidence of a beneficent Creator, who formed the universe with the specific intention of producing us. For those who do not accept the 'providence' or Creator arguments, and Sir Martin places himself in this category, there is another argument, though still conjectural. This is that the 'big bang' may not have been the only one. Separate universes may have cooled down differently, ending up governed by different laws and defined by different numbers. Certainly, reading this book (and its no light task in coming to grips with the scale or immensity of the numbers) has been rewarding for me and has awakened in me an interest in looking further into other discussions regarding the 'big bang', time and parallel universes. David Skea, Reviewer
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