In his work as Cosmology Consultant for New Scientist magazine, Marcus Chown often comes across mind-blowing ideas and in The Universe Next Door he explores 12 of the most extraordinary. He delves into regions of space where time travels backwards, the possibility that the many worlds theorem implies that we can live forever and invisible mirror-matter interacting with ours only via gravity. As he points out in the foreword, such apparently crazy ideas are essential for pushing forward the frontiers of science and the concepts presented here are attempts to answer the big questions about reality, time and the origins of the universe. Why are the laws of physics so perfectly tuned that they allow atoms, stars and people to exist? Is there perhaps infinity of universes out there, all with different physical laws? Some theorists have suggested that our universe was deliberately created by vastly superior aliens, or that universes are born within the singularities of black holes and that those with physical laws like ours will reproduce themselves many times, while others will not. It’s all well-written and thought-provoking, but there are few brand-new ideas here. If you read New Scientist or other popular cosmology books, you’ll have come across most of these concepts before, but if not, this is a good place to start. The universe is a very strange place and the more we learn about it, the stranger it becomes. Chown is a friendly guide through the weirdness. --Elizabeth Sourbut
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