A Fortunate Universe
by GA Lewis and LA Barnes, Cambridge, £18.99
In theory, universes can behave in countless different ways and the odds that they will support life as we know it are vanishingly small. We only have one example of a universe at our disposal, of course, so that theory is impossible to prove. It’s good fun pondering the possibilities, though, and Geraint Lewis and Luke Barnes bring wit as well as expertise to the task.
All manner of strange scenarios are discussed: a universe in which gravity doesn’t exist, for example, or one in which everything expands so rapidly that the cohesion of matter is virtually impossible and all we end up with is “a thin soup of hydrogen and helium”.
