Rating: 
Summary: Goody goody
Review: Actually 4 1/2 stars.
While some parts of the book are speculative, drawing parallels with Chown's Universe Next Door, the book has too much meat in it to ignore. The issues related to Cosmology and Quantum Physics can get foggy for a lay reader, unless (s)he keeps reading more and more. This is just one book which is an indispensable part of the pop-science collection so necessary if you are into Cosmology and Quantum Physics. Paul Davies is a fine writer and I value his books just next to the Gribbin, Rees, Barrow, Hawking books that I have (can add Brian Green to that too). And this is one of his best. I have taken off half a star only because the book has a 'little' vagueness in the way it progresses form one topic to the other. One has to re-read it to get a wholistic picture of what has just been told - er, having written that, I'm not sure if it is criticism.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting, quick read
Review: After enjoying Davies' "The Mind of God" I decided to check out another of his books. The Last Three Minutes is certainly not a let down. It explores several possible fates for our universe, presenting the information in easily understandable form. The book wanders from science to philosophy as Davies first presents (at a very high level) the physics behind the possible fates of the universe and then goes on to consider how beings living at the end of the universe might be able to survive. At first I found these transitions a surprise and thought he had strayed off topic, but I ultimately ended up enjoying thinking about these conjectures.The only criticism I have about the book is the material is sometimes lacking supporting detail. I'd like to have more information about the theories that were being discussed. Another problem, though clearly not the author's fault, is that some of the material is outdated. If you are interested the current state of the physics discussed in this book I'd recommend checking out Brian Greene's "The Elegant Universe".
Rating: 
Summary: ONE DYING STAR .....
Review: First, let me say that I am a scientist, and in my eyes this book just doesn't cut it. "The last three minutes" is all about how this author thinks the Universe will end. Worst of all - in more than one place it speculates about how some almighty supreme being might be able to think forever, based on the laws of thermodynamics. He talks about colonisation by the human species to other planets. Excuse me, colonisation? The rate we are going we won't last a few decades into the future. It would be totally irrational to even contemplate that, with all of our earthbound problems. A few astronauts going to the planet Mars and beyond and starting up their own damn colony does all of the rest of us here a fat lot of good now, doesn't it?!
Suggestions like these invite a "disposable planet" mentality. Bugger up the world and move on. It would be far easier to fix up the ozone hole here on Earth than terraform the planet Mars.
He proposes that we might genetically engineer ourselves to better adapt to other worlds. Why don't we genetically engineer ourselves to be more benevolent first? I think Paul Davies has a damn nerve to speak on behalf of all of humanity like this. Paul Davies says is that if there isn't enough matter in the Universe to halt the expansion, it will expand forever. Fair enough. Except then he goes on to mention a sci-fi novel, "...which tells the story of a community of conscious beings who live on the surface of a neutron star. These beings utilize nuclear rather than chemical reactions to sustain their existence." Then Paul Davies states that, "Unfortunately, adopting this strategy as a means of survival has a downside: the greater will be the rate of energy dissipation and the more rapidly will the available energy resources become depleted. You might think that this would inevitably spell doom for our descendants, whatever physical form they might adopt. But not necessarily so." He then continues with the discussion. This idea is ludicrous - absolute absurdity, that's what it is! Anyone who knows exactly how dense and hot a neutron star is will know we won't EVER be colonising one. These completely ridiculous concepts are totally inappropriate in a popular science book! I'll quote another bit of it for you: "...eventually all black holes will simply disappear in a puff of radiation... a black hole of one solar mass would take 10^66 years to disappear, while a supermassive hole would take more like 10^93 years... and the process wouldn't even get underway until the background temperature of the universe had dropped below that of the black hole... and it would take 10^22 years before this cooled to the level... the process... isn't something you sit around and watch." Well that is THE UNDERSTATEMENT of the decade!! Then he goes on to say that after 10^1500 years (a 1 followed by 1500 zeroes) all matter will transmute into the most stable nuclear form, which is iron. OK, so you are all very much aware of the difference between one dollar, one thousand dollars and one million dollars - those numbers vary by there zeroes. Now try to imagine a number 1 followed by one thousand five hundred zeroes, and how many years that would be. Seriously now, this is just such an inconceivably long time, I doubt it has any real meaning for us beings that rarely make it to a hundred. One aspect of the "big crunch" is not discussed by Paul Davies. If all the matter in the known universe is hurtling towards a central point, rather than form a big crunch and the end of the universe, why doesn't a giant black hole form instead which is far more physically feasible? I also think that the notion that the whole universe will "end" is preposterous. How can Paul Davies have the audacity to state that, on the single assumption that the universe seems to get simpler as astronomers look out with their telescopes, and therefore the "local" universe is ALL that exists? What is beyond the observable horizon? I'll tell you *nobody* on Earth knows. We can never be certain; it is impossible. Does Paul Davies honestly think that all these outrageous speculations will impress people? It does the opposite with me. I begin to wonder if has is losing all his rationality. My worry is that his books appeal to non-scientists and they'll just believe whatever he writes. He contributes to the stereotypical image of scientists so obsessed with obscure & totally impractical concepts that they are not at all concerned with the here and now of everyday life. If you ask me, he's more like one of those theologians than a scientist. Sure, he may have a doctorate, but even I'LL have one of those in a few months time. This guy honestly turned me off Astronomy, I now read books about biology, because I think it is just so much more fascinating to read about amazing things on the surface of this planet, here and now. THIS IS WITHOUT A DOUBT THE WORST BOOK I HAVE EVER READ. I only regret that I didn't write this 1 star review ages ago, because I just might have prevented a few more people from having to endure reading this baloney from cover to cover. I give it 1 dying star...
Rating:
Summary: The human end and not so much the universe's
Review: I am not a scientist, and do not understand technical scientific matters in a deep way. For better descriptions of what this book is about in scientific terms I recommend the reader of this review look at the other Amazon Reviews.
I am the kind of reader who reads the scientific material in order to use it as basis for understanding certain fundamental questions. Science provides the ' truth' and my own thought the conjecture.
However what happens when the Science itself is conjecture, and what we are dealing with is alternative theories? From what I understand the most accepted view of the Universe's ' end' in scientific terms is its continuous expansion. Thus a number of readers on Amazon have indicated that the ' contraction scenario 'or ' big crunch scenario ' for the world's end is not held today by the great majority of Astronomers.
My question and here I share Davies' concern is not with ' the end of the Universe' the ' last three minutes as it were of everything' but with the ' ultimate fate of mankind'. And I wonder if the kind of material presented here brings to a greater understanding of that.
On the one hand it is possible to suggest that Mankind is such a small part of the Universe, and has been in existence for such a small interval of time that its continued existence through the kinds of times and distances the Universe is likely to exist through seems extremely unlikely. Here it is possible to speak about various scenarios of ' colonization' and the human transformations involved in them. Speculations in other words.
But then too since Mankind is now rapidly developing ' machine - intelligences' that may in some way become ' independent others' the question of ultimate human fate is connected with our own efforts here. In other words we might not wait until the last three minutes of the universe but might through our own ' creative means' put ourselves to sleep.
All this of course raises questions which are ultimately religious or spiritual.
And that question too I think should be asked in relation to ' the final time' of the universe.
All this leads me to the thought that the real subject we should be thinking about is the subject of God at the beginning or before the beginning, and God at the end or beyond the End. And what that means for us. And what we mean for God?
And how we are to make sense of this universe, and whether or not we can at all.
This is to say that the kinds of information Davies presents do not help me so much in my own quest to ' understand the ultimate meaning of who I am, who we are, and what my and our purpose is here on this earth and in this Universe.
For all those we now living love will end long before the physical Universe does.
Is there some other meaning for all of us only God knows ? Is there another universe next door or up above, or in some other way of perception and knowing we cannot possibly grasp?
Rating:
Summary: Great Read- Too bad it's out of date already
Review: I found Davies' "The Last Three Minutes" a fascinating read. I meant only to read the preface while I was waiting in the store, but I became immediately engrossed and realised that I had to buy it so that I could finish it. His descriptions about the 2 options of the ultimate fate of the universe (whether it will collapse on itself, or expand forever) are made incredibly clear. Unfortunately, the book was published merely a year before scientists discovered that the universe will indeed expand forever (Deemed "the breakthrough of the Year" for 1998 by the journal Science). This makes all discussion of "the Big Crunch" (and about half of the book) purely conjectural. My only problem with the book was his attempts to discuss the ultimate fate of humans and their descendants. I thought that it was a little irrelevant and ought to be left to philosophers rather than cosmologists. All in all, an informative read.
Rating:
Summary: Great Read- Too bad it's out of date already
Review: I found Davies' "The Last Three Minutes" a fascinating read. I meant only to read the preface while I was waiting in the store, but I became immediately engrossed and realised that I had to buy it so that I could finish it. His descriptions about the 2 options of the ultimate fate of the universe (whether it will collapse on itself, or expand forever) are made incredibly clear. Unfortunately, the book was published merely a year before scientists discovered that the universe will indeed expand forever (Deemed "the breakthrough of the Year" for 1998 by the journal Science). This makes all discussion of "the Big Crunch" (and about half of the book) purely conjectural. My only problem with the book was his attempts to discuss the ultimate fate of humans and their descendants. I thought that it was a little irrelevant and ought to be left to philosophers rather than cosmologists. All in all, an informative read.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting, quick read
Review: I've known Paul Davies as an exceptional writer of easy-reading scientific books, and this one didn't let me down either. Talking about how the Universe might "end", we learn first how it begun, and then several ways it could just "die"! Davies is extremely full of detail about everything he describes, and all that while not using any technical or hard-to-grasp scientific jargon! However, some of the descriptions do get a little off-hand. Those few were a little too much detail than what I'd expect. Overall though, it's another one of Davies's classics, one that after reading it, you'll be searching for ways to spend your 100 trillion billion years left, before the Cosmos dies in a spectacular (or not!) way.
Rating:
Summary: Are we doomed? :-)
Review: I've known Paul Davies as an exceptional writer of easy-reading scientific books, and this one didn't let me down either. Talking about how the Universe might "end", we learn first how it begun, and then several ways it could just "die"! Davies is extremely full of detail about everything he describes, and all that while not using any technical or hard-to-grasp scientific jargon! However, some of the descriptions do get a little off-hand. Those few were a little too much detail than what I'd expect. Overall though, it's another one of Davies's classics, one that after reading it, you'll be searching for ways to spend your 100 trillion billion years left, before the Cosmos dies in a spectacular (or not!) way.
Rating:
Summary: Fire or ice?
Review: It is safe to say that I grew up reading Paul Davies; my first real introduction to physical sciences such as astronomy and physic was the television series 'Cosmos'; that inspired me to purchase the companion text, which further inspired me to join the Astronomy Book Club two dozen years ago. One of the first books offered, and the first book I received from them, was Paul Davies' 'Other Worlds' -- from then on, I was hooked. I have nearly a dozen books by Paul Davies, all on topics of theoretical physics, astrophysics and cosmology -- he is consistently readable, entertaining and educating with the same style that compels the reader to want more (which he then provides). It was not surprising to me to see his name on the Science Masters Series. The series has basic introductions to many of the key issues in science today -- evolution, origins of life, cognitive science, time, computer science, and more. Each volume is relatively short -- 'The Last Three Minutes' has a mere 150 pages of text that is not too dense, sparing technically and mathematically without losing much conceptually. The issue of the end of the universe is one of the 'hot spots' of astrophysics and cosmology, and so there are elements of this book that are already a bit out of date, despite being less than a decade old. However, given the speculative nature of many 'discoveries' in this field, it is impossible to say if anything is truly out of date or false at the present time. Davies explores the end of the universe by setting the stage -- drawing from current thinking about the origins of the universe, in fact one of the options for conjecture, in a closed universe system, would be that the last three minutes would resemble quite closely the first three minutes. Davies looks at the various processes -- stellar evolution and decay, gravitational issues, overall radiation depletion, energy-fuel consumption -- and draws these together for the various theories about the end of the universe. Davies shows the ideas of the closed/collapsing universe (a view not widely held today) and of the infinitely expanding universe (the current reigning theory), giving ideas about the variables required to tip the scales in one direction or the other. Even with an infinitely expanding universe, however, all is not necessarily well with the world -- the universe runs the risk (in the future so distant there is no realistic way of expressing it in terms of time we know) of becoming a dark, deep freeze with no activity left, and all matter becoming inert and inactive in every respect. Davies speculates on what this means for the survival of humanity and human history -- how can information be preserved? How can our species go on in the face of this? Such speculation is pure conjecture; the time distances are so far removed that nothing we devise will likely come close to resembling an actual answer to this. However, it is interesting as a mental exercise, and leads the reader hopefully to further reading.
Rating: 
Summary: The Last 3 Minutes: Just Like The First 3?
Review: Most cosmologists pretty well agree that the seeds of the end of the universe are inextricably connected with its genesis. Oddly enough, these cosmologists further agree that they probably know more about the universe's beginning than its end. Paul Davies, in his 1994 THE LAST THREE MINUTES, posits not only one ending that might take three minutes, but also several others of varying time closures. Davies mentions that at the birth of this universe there probably was a very slight excess of baryonic matter over non-baryonic. This slight excess almost certainly (notice how I often qualify my assertions with 'probably' and 'almost certainly'? Can't help it) did not matter very much in the pre-exponential inflationary state, but as our nascent universe exploded under the impetus of the false vacuum pressure pushing outward, it went from sub-proton size to a grapefruit size in a trillionth trillionth of a nano-second. As I read this, I saw that Mr. Davies has the right knack useful in explaining highly technical material. He clearly presents the conventional wisdom of the start of our universe. However, it is when he delves into its end that he begins to attract hostile critics like Leslie Brown, who clearly is upset with Davies' assertions about (a) the amount of dark matter in the universe that Davies believes will cause a Big Crunch and (b) Davies' speculations about other and more fanciful ways the universe could end. Davis suggests that our universe could end without warning if the current vacuum state that has existed for the last fifteen billion years should unexpectedly slide into a still lower state. Now this, despite Mr.Brown's anger, is still reasonably possible. There is nothing in physics that forbids such a slide. However, Mr.Davies branches off into other areas that while enjoyable to contemplate have not a shred of proof to indicate their possibility. Davies suggests that a Uni-mind of beings that may exist nano-seconds before the Big Crunch can play mind tricks and draw out a 'virtual' universe that need not correspond to clock time, thereby eternalizing the existence of that mind. This may be so, but I see nothing in physics that states it must be so.
While the reliability of the evidence that suggests that we live in a closed universe, doomed one day to cease expansion and retreat into the same nothingness from which it came, has recently been held less reliable than a belief in the opposite, a forever expansion, still I am not quite so quick to relegate Paul Davies and his mixture of accepted truth with unaccepted conjecture to the cosmic black hole of discarded ideas. Just because I do not ardently trumpet his ideas as linked to my own, I still like to think that in a book designed more for the layman than for the professional, enjoyment and not elucidation ought to rank high as to why one read it in the first place.
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