Simple and lively, though not authoritative, writings about the eternal-inflation multiverse, Wolfram's would-be science revolution, the cyclic/ekpyrotic universe, quantum decoherence, the flow-of-time puzzle, Chaitin's Omega number, symmetry and physical law, origin(s) of mass, SETI alternatives, and Tipler's (wacko!) immortality theory.

Very much a product of the popular science genre, Marcus Chown gushes, with an overload of exclamation marks, about some of the more head spinning theories from physics and cosmology. I really enjoyed these quick snap-shots from the wilder fringes of science and in the process getting my mind well and truly boggled!

We have an infinity of bubble universes arising from the big-bang, where somewhere our exact double must exist! We have the idea that our universe was created by a collision with another universe! Another scientist theorises that the secrets of space and time could be contained in a single number! The book ends with the most outrageously grandiose speculation of them all-Frank Tipler’s Omega Point, where each and every one of us is resurrected in a computer simulation at the end of time!

Those of you who look to the supernatural or religion to provide a sense of wonder should read this book. Here they will find material science providing an enormously more powerful fix of astonishment and surprise. ( )