The End of Everything

“Katie Mack is a great scientist, a passionate inquirer of nature, a great companion in this exploration, full of wit and lightness. I have learned from her plenty of things I did not know. And I have found myself staring out of the window, meditating about the end of it all.” —Carlo Rovelli

Auteur

Katie Mack

Texte du rabat

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK * AN NPR SCIENCE FRIDAY BOOK CLUB SELECTION* NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST, THE ECONOMIST, NEW SCIENTIST, PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, and THE GUARDIAN

From one of the most dynamic rising stars in astrophysics, an “engrossing, elegant” (The New York Times) look at five ways the universe could end, and the mind-blowing lessons each scenario reveals about the most important concepts in cosmology.

We know the universe had a beginning. With the Big Bang, it expanded from a state of unimaginable density to an all-encompassing cosmic fireball to a simmering fluid of matter and energy, laying down the seeds for everything from black holes to one rocky planet orbiting a star near the edge of a spiral galaxy that happened to develop life as we know it. But what happens to the universe at the end of the story? And what does it mean for us now?

Dr. Katie Mack has been contemplating these questions since she was a young student, when her astronomy professor informed her the universe could end at any moment, in an instant. This revelation set her on the path toward theoretical astrophysics. Now, with lively wit and humor, she takes us on a mind-bending tour through five of the cosmos’s possible finales: the Big Crunch, Heat Death, the Big Rip, Vacuum Decay (the one that could happen at any moment!), and the Bounce. Guiding us through cutting-edge science and major concepts in quantum mechanics, cosmology, string theory, and much more, The End of Everything is a wildly fun, surprisingly upbeat ride to the farthest reaches of all that we know.

Résumé
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2020
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY *THE WASHINGTON POST THE ECONOMIST NEW SCIENTIST PUBLISHERS WEEKLY THE GUARDIAN

From one of the most dynamic rising stars in astrophysics, an “engrossing, elegant” (The New York Times) look at five ways the universe could end, and the mind-blowing lessons each scenario reveals about the most important concepts in cosmology.

We know the universe had a beginning. With the Big Bang, it expanded from a state of unimaginable density to an all-encompassing cosmic fireball to a simmering fluid of matter and energy, laying down the seeds for everything from black holes to one rocky planet orbiting a star near the edge of a spiral galaxy that happened to develop life as we know it. But what happens to the universe at the end of the story? And what does it mean for us now?

Dr. Katie Mack has been contemplating these questions since she was a young student, when her astronomy professor informed her the universe could end at any moment, in an instant. This revelation set her on the path toward theoretical astrophysics. Now, with lively wit and humor, she takes us on a mind-bending tour through five of the cosmos’s possible finales: the Big Crunch, Heat Death, the Big Rip, Vacuum Decay (the one that could happen at any moment!), and the Bounce. Guiding us through cutting-edge science and major concepts in quantum mechanics, cosmology, string theory, and much more, The End of Everything is a wildly fun, surprisingly upbeat ride to the farthest reaches of all that we know.

Échantillon de lecture
Chapter 1: Introduction to the Cosmos CHAPTER 1: Introduction to the Cosmos
Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I’ve tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

Robert Frost, 1920

The question of how the world will end has been the subject of speculation and debate among poets and philosophers throughout history. Of course, now, thanks to science, we know the answer: it’s fire. Definitely, fire. In about five billion years, the Sun will swell to its red giant phase, engulf the orbit of Mercury and perhaps Venus, and leave the Earth a charred, lifeless, magma-covered rock. Even this sterile smoldering remnant is likely fated to eventually spiral into the Sun’s outer layers and disperse its atoms in the churning atmosphere of the dying star.

So: fire. That’s settled. Frost was right the first time.

But he wasn’t thinking big enough. I’m a cosmologist. I study the universe, as a whole, on the largest scales. From that perspective, the world is a small sentimental speck of dust lost in a vast and varied universe. What matters to me, professionally and personally, is a bigger question: how will the universe end?

We know it had a beginning. About 13.8 billion years ago, the universe went from a state of unimaginable density, to an all-encompassing cosmic fireball, to a cooling, humming fluid of matter and energy, which laid down the seeds for the stars and galaxies we see around us today. Planets formed, galaxies collided, light filled the cosmos. A rocky planet orbiting an ordinary star near the edge of a spiral galaxy developed life, computers, political science, and spindly bipedal mammals who read physics books for fun.

But what’s next? What happens at the end of the story? The death of a planet, or even a star, might in principle be survivable. In billions of years, humanity could still conceivably exist, in some perhaps unrecognizable form, venturing out to distant reaches of space, finding new homes and building new civilizations. The death of the universe, though, is final. What does it mean for us, for everything, if it will all eventually come to an end?

WELCOME TO THE END TIMES

Despite the existence of some classic (and highly entertaining) papers in the scientific literature, I first encountered the term “eschatology,” the study of the end of everything, by reading about religion.

Eschatology—or more specifically, the end of the world—provides a way for many of the world’s religions to contextualize the lessons of theology and to drive home their meaning with overwhelming force. For all the theological differences between Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, they have in common a vision of the End Times that brings about a final restructuring of the world in which good triumphs over evil and those favored by God are rewarded.I Perhaps the promise of a final judgment serves to somehow make up for the unfortunate fact that our imperfect, unfair, arbitrary physical world cannot be relied upon to make existence good and worthwhile for those who live right. In the same way a novel can be redeemed or retroactively ruined by its concluding chapter, many religious philosophies seem to need the world to end, and to end “justly,” for it to have had meaning in the first place.

Of course, not all eschatologies are redemptive, and not all religions predict an end time at all. Despite the hype around late December 2012, the Mayan view of the universe was a cyclic one, as it is in Hindu tradition, with no particular “end” designated. The cycles in these traditions aren’t mere repetitions, but are imbued with the possibility that things will be better the next time around: all your suffering in this world is bad, but don’t worry, a new world is coming, and it will be unscarred, or perhaps improved, by the iniquities of the present. Secular stories of the end, on the other hand, run the gamut from a nihilist view that no…