The End of Everything: (Astrophysically Speaking)

Katie Mack’s timely (it’s 2020 after all) survey of the various ways the Universe might end, based on current physics, was a delightful read. It is an interesting and fun book. We learn about the Big Crunch (the Universe shrinking back), the Heat Death, or rather the high-entropy death, the Big Rip, Vacuum decay, or the “quantum bubble of death” if you want to call it that, and the “bounce”. The bounce is a bouncing Universe with repeated Big Bangs. This could result from a much larger eternal ekpyrotic Universe where colliding 3D branes result in repeated Big Bangs. Personally, I am hoping for the quantum bubble of death.To understand where the various ideas regarding the end of the Universe come from, you need to understand some of the physics and the cosmology. We learn something about CMB, or the Cosmic Microwave Background, Big Bang, cosmic inflation, Planck Time, GUTs, Nucleosynthesis, the standard model, de Sitter Space, black holes, electroweak symmetry breaking, the Higgs Boson and the Higgs field, multiverses, and much more. Perhaps most importantly, we learn about dark matter and dark energy, which are important concepts that have greatly changed cosmology over the last few years. Chapter 2 on the Big Bang reminded me a lot about an old book by Stephen Weinberg, the first 3 minutes. However, Katie Mack puts a modern spin on it and goes much further beyond our Universe. I was intrigued to hear that it might be possible to communicate between different Universes in a multiverse using gravity, or gravity waves.The book is written for laymen, and I found it to be between Neil De Grasse Tyson / Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking in difficulty level. The book covers a lot of concepts and theories but does so concisely, simply and not in a mathematical way. Not so simply though that it is misleading. I am an Engineer with an undergrad degree in physics so I may not be the best person to judge whether this is an easy read for laymen, but I believe it is. I am very interested in these kinds of topics, and I read all popularized books on cosmology, modern physics, the standard model, that I can find. This was one of the most fun books that I’ve ever read.

Katie Mack does a fantastic job at giving us a run through of the theories for the end of well.. everything. As scary as such a concept might be, and not just understanding the mechanics behind it, it is also quite liberating. Reading this book helps take some of the weight we place on ourselves daily thinking that the reality we live in is some sort of permanent thing. Whereas that is far from the case. Everything can and will eventually decay. Me, You, this keyboard I'm currently typing on, etc. At least Katie Mack is giving us some means with which to understand the concepts.P.S. As a lover of existential crisis's I couldn't be more happy with this book. It gives a little anxiety but in a more defined and fascinating way. 10/10 does not do this book justice. Grab a copy and see for yourself. :)

I have no scientific background, but I try, a couple times a year to address my illiteracy in this area by picking up a book on a topic beyond my usual areas of interest. I bought this book for that reason, and honestly, it did not work this time. If you actually are an astrophysicist you may well be fascinated, but this is a field where so much is conjecture that I was swamped. The prose itself is not the problem. The book is written in a breezy, easy to follow style and there is very little jargon that is not explained. So, I don't feel competent enough to dissuade expert readers from this, but I have to say the publishers promote this book as something every reader can follow, and that is just not the case.

Katie Mack has the gift of explaining complex concepts with language that I could understand. As a professional educator, I used to posit that, if the learner didn't learn, then the teacher didn't "teach". In the absence of learning, a different verb would be needed. To whit, if the reader did not understand, then the writer did not write … scribbled, perhaps, but "writing" not the apt verb. Katie is a true writer.Neal WhitmanProfessor EmeritusUniversity of Utah School of Medicine

At times laugh-out-loud funny, consistently illuminating, delightful to read from start to finish. I learned a ton, and actually plan to re-read this at times to refresh my understanding of a number of concepts that Katie lays out. As a lay-person with a fair degree of interest in (but no training in) astrophysics, I found this book to be a perfect blend of insight, explanation, and break-your-brain theory. Cannot recommend this highly enough.

Definitely not for the layman with no background in physics or astronomy. The title is misleading as much of the book deals with concepts not directly related to the “end of everything.” In fact., many pages at the beginning are about the beginning of the universe. I imagine the author will argue that this information is helpful in learning about its end. Physicists are uncertain about a lot of things in this area of study, and so we get many theories and a sense that they all may be wrong. Very frustrating. Please do not recommend this book to anyone whose background is primarily in the humanities.I am constantly teased by book reviews that suggest one can understand the content with a minimal background in the field. Again, we have an example of this not being true. My rating is the result of the frustration of being fooled again.

Normally I get through books at a rate of 4 to 6 a month.This one has been a total curved ball.....With this book; I find, I read a few pages - then have to go back and re-read it to pigeon hole what I've read - it's not a difficult read but it's very 'involved'. I can read a piece of fiction and people I know become characters in my mind so I have a reference point with each character.However, this is a totally different.... I'm enjoying it, but my nut is fried! I have read five other books since starting this but the masochist in me keeps going back for another kick in the guts.I shall beat this book.I'm sure that some people will be posting that they've understood, inwardly digested and have loved every page they've read - it's amazing how many theoretical physicists there are in the world!!!!I'm sure you'll enjoy this book because despite what I've written above it's great fun.................................................!!

I read this, cover-to-cover, in an afternoon; it's that compelling a read.Pratchett fans will enjoy the way most of the jokes are in the footnotes, and there are plenty of them.Sci-fi fans will appreciate the quotes that start the chapters. Seriously: many scientists got pushed that way by reading science-fiction; this book could do the same to someone in secondary school.The big dodge is failing to explain why dark energy causes galaxies to fly apart but doesn't do the same to the quarks in a proton. But isn't that precisely what cosmologists need to understand?

This is on one of the best books I've read for a long time. It's a demanding read for a non-specialist but wholly absorbing, with mind-blowingly complex concepts very clearly explained. Katie Mack has a real gift for finding the right analogy and then applying it with precision. The book is so well written that although I frequently found myself re-reading a paragraph several times and very slowly, I also found it a real page turner and as hard to put down as a good novel. Having read it on Kindle, I then went out and bought a physical copy for re-reading and reference back to key concepts. Very strongly recommended.

This is a great read for anyone interested in cosmology (and the like). It is the author's first book and I was pleased to find a photo of her on the inside back cover - she is comparatively young so... please let's see more from this author. The book's content fascinates, but it is the writing style that makes this book great, not just clear (no mean feat as she deals with some complex concepts) but a delight to read, not least as it is threaded with some well judged wit.Definitely a find, I shall buy anything else she has published unhesitatingly, meantime this is highly recommended.

Rigorous, invigorating and yet communicated in an exceptionally engaging and accessible way, the end of all things has never seemed quite so enticing as it is presented here. Mack really does appear to cover all the bases from an evident position of professional scientific authority, but does so with the communication skills of a great populist of the arcane complexity of theoretical physics, astrophysics and cosmology. Even if some of her conclusions concerning the possible fate of the universe might be alarming to some of her readers, this is both fun and informative in the best tradition of science writing for the non-specialist.