how it ends, by Chris Impey
Subtitle: from you to the universe
This is a book about death. It starts with your death. Then, it goes on to the death of the biosphere (which may or may not be the same as the death of the planet Earth, depending on how things go), the death of the sun and thus our solar system, the death of the Milky Way, and eventually reaches the death of the entire univerise. This is a book about the inevitable. For me, unfortunately, it's not grim enough.
I believe Chris Impey may just not be a morbid enough person. He keeps getting sidetracked into interesting science. He also seems to be an omnivorous scientist, or at least omnivorous science enthusiast. His actual specialty for reseach is "observational cosmology, gravitational lensing, and the evolution and structure of galaxies", none of which I even knew was a thing to specialize in.
Make no mistake, he does work in a lot of disaster scenarios. The collision of the Milky Way galaxy with the Andromeda galaxy. Our sun running out of hydrogen to fuse into helium, and expanding to a size large enough to swallow Mercury and leave the Earth a scorched and barren rock. We learn about the origin of actuarial science, the mathematical study of how we will die, and how soon.
Impey is by nature an optimist, though, and he ends up telling us a great deal about various schemes to attempt immortality, for ourselves or our species. Perhaps he doesn't think a book entirely about how we will (not may) end up dead is not one with enough of a market. He might be right in that. Me, I wanted more talk about death, and less about (mostly hopeless) schemes to try to cheat it. But, that may just be me.
If you are wanting a sunny and optimistic book looking at how you, your planet, your sun, your galaxy, and your universe are all going to end someday, this is the book for you.
This is a book about death. It starts with your death. Then, it goes on to the death of the biosphere (which may or may not be the same as the death of the planet Earth, depending on how things go), the death of the sun and thus our solar system, the death of the Milky Way, and eventually reaches the death of the entire univerise. This is a book about the inevitable. For me, unfortunately, it's not grim enough.
I believe Chris Impey may just not be a morbid enough person. He keeps getting sidetracked into interesting science. He also seems to be an omnivorous scientist, or at least omnivorous science enthusiast. His actual specialty for reseach is "observational cosmology, gravitational lensing, and the evolution and structure of galaxies", none of which I even knew was a thing to specialize in.
Make no mistake, he does work in a lot of disaster scenarios. The collision of the Milky Way galaxy with the Andromeda galaxy. Our sun running out of hydrogen to fuse into helium, and expanding to a size large enough to swallow Mercury and leave the Earth a scorched and barren rock. We learn about the origin of actuarial science, the mathematical study of how we will die, and how soon.
Impey is by nature an optimist, though, and he ends up telling us a great deal about various schemes to attempt immortality, for ourselves or our species. Perhaps he doesn't think a book entirely about how we will (not may) end up dead is not one with enough of a market. He might be right in that. Me, I wanted more talk about death, and less about (mostly hopeless) schemes to try to cheat it. But, that may just be me.
If you are wanting a sunny and optimistic book looking at how you, your planet, your sun, your galaxy, and your universe are all going to end someday, this is the book for you.