As Star Trek would say: "Space, the final frontier!" The universe is a very big place, but books (and science!) help to bring space down to Earth for its readers. Some of these books can seem over the heads for us non-scientist readers, with all sorts of intimidating jargon in the scientific field present that discourage us from reading further. Not to mention this is a curiosity-killer! Science of all kinds can feel like a realm not meant for us mere mortals, especially when dealing with the mind-boggling scale of the universe.
However, the best popular science books are witty and engaging about the big ideas and written in an accessible way, sans jargon. Here is a small selection of space books that I think will be less intimidating (and more fun) journeys through the cosmos.
The Milky Way: An Autobiography of Our Galaxy by Dr. Moiya McTier
This is a more recent addition to the popular science canon, published August of 2022. Dr. Moiya McTier, an astrophysicist and folklorist, channels our home galaxy, the Milky Way, for a humorous journey from the galaxy's birth to what its end might entail. The Milky Way is a bit of an arrogant narrator, but it must speak for itself after many, many years of humans telling stories about it, and to a massive entity like the Milky Way, it's understandable that humans must look like ants. Nevertheless, our home galaxy has a soft spot for humanity, who strives through science to try and understand it.
Our Milky Way began its life 13 billion years ago, after a massive cloud of dust coalesced, via the forces of gravity, into the form that we know today. McTier tells the galaxy's story before humanity came along and waxes poetically about its potential end, far, far, far into the future. The Milky Way is an accessible tome that sums up quite well what science knows about our galaxy and the larger universe.
The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking) by Katie Mack
For my full review on this title, please see: https://abookblog4you.blogspot.com/2022/11/book-review-end-of-everything-by-katie.html
The End of Everything is actually a fun read. Now, hear me out on this one! Katie Mack is an astrophysicist with a really engaging writing style about a subject that should be depressing. Her physics origin story was a class in which her professor said that the universe could end at any time, and she had to know more! Each of the theories about how our universe will come to its end is a case-study for exploring extremely important ideas about quantum mechanics, cosmology, string theory, and more physics ideas she explains in a very accessible way so as not to chase readers away!
What scenarios does science have for how everything will end? The Big Crunch, Heat Death, Vacuum Decay, the Big Rip, and the Bounce. Those are the mainstream theories, (because there are some really crazy ones out there) all with their own quirks. Like I said, The End of Everything is an unexpectedly fun ride that explores the far edges of what scientists know about our universe.
Cosmos: Possible Worlds by Ann Druyan
Cosmos is a sequel of sorts to the classic title by Carl Sagan and an outgrowth of the popular National Geographic show of a similar name. It is designed to re-ignite our collective wonder at the immensity of our universe and the smallness of our "pale blue dot" of a planet. And what a wonderful job Cosmos does of this, in my opinion!
Starting with the Big Bang, and exploring the evolution of life, from the first life around deep-sea vents to modern humans (and everything in between), Druyan explores our cosmic origin story with breathtaking illustrations and photographs. It's a beautiful, poignant, and accessibly written exploration of how our world and science got to what it is today, from the earliest of humanity's space exploration in the Voyager missions to scientists looking to preserve biodiversity in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway. Humanity has always been a curious, exploring species, and Cosmos is a great reminder of that and how much exploration is still ahead for us.
Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson
Written in the accessible style of Cosmos: Possible Worlds, popular astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson educates readers about the universe in a slim volume designed for the everyday reader. A succinct guide to the "Big Questions," Astrophysics for People in a Hurry is truly written for those that are busy living their lives and didn't earn a degree in astrophysics.
Each bite-size chapter reveals the extent of scientists' collective knowledge of our world and its place in the universe. For, as much as we have come to know (we have progressed a long way from thinking the Earth is the very center of the universe), there is a bunch that we still don't know. The "don't-knows" considerably outnumber our "confident-that-we-knows" by quite a bit. A fact that should be humbling for all of us, scientists or general readers alike. If you want your mind blown in an accessible, humorous way, Astrophysics for People in a Hurry is the book for you!
The Biggest Ideas in the Universe by Sean Carroll
I have recently discovered physicist Sean Carroll, by way of various popular science podcasts. Part one of a planned three volume series, The Biggest Ideas in the Universe looks at how physics describes space, time, and motion in our universe. That very title might be intimidating, but this volume is written in such a way as to make more accessible critical physics concepts without condescending to readers without physics degrees (such as myself).
Carroll makes equally intimidating mathematical concepts around space, time, and motion (calculus, shudder) more accessible in that he doesn't dwell too much on the equations themselves, but how they have enabled significant advances in science. Each equation is broke down into its constituent parts, so that readers can appreciate the beauty of how they all fit together in a very clever way to enable understanding of the universe, from explaining the physics of a baseball in motion to the behemoths known as black holes. The Biggest Ideas in the Universe may just be the book that gets you hooked on popular science!
Happy reading!
--BookOwl
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