A question of space

PD Smith on How the Universe Got Its Spots | The Universe Next Door

How the Universe Got Its Spots: Diary of a Finite Time in a Finite Space, by Janna Levin (Phoenix, £7.99)

Modern cosmology began in 1917 when Einstein first modelled the universe, using his general theory of relativity. But although Einstein replaced Newtonian forces with geometry, he didn't "determine the global shape and connectedness of space". Janna Levin takes us on an intriguing odyssey to the outer reaches of physics in search of answers, boldly going where even Einstein was afraid to go.

Her "diary from my social exile as a roaming scientist" also puts a refreshingly personal spin on cosmology. Her life, like modern physics, is ruled by uncertainty and even chaos. Levin frankly admits that although the cosmos's radiation "spots" might one day allow scientists like her to glimpse its structure, the universe may simply be too vast and strange for our limited minds to grasp. But as she rightly says, "the beauty is in the trying and hoping and striving".

The Universe Next Door: Twelve Mind-Blowing Ideas from the Cutting Edge of Science, by Marcus Chown (Review, £7.99)

The cosmological ideas in this book will, as the author says with typical understatement, "knock your socks off". For instance: our universe could be the outcome of an experiment carried out by a superior intelligence in another universe. Or the unexplained dark matter in the universe might be "mirror matter", and there could be "an entire invisible universe occupying the same space as the visible universe".

Chown explains these bizarre and complex ideas with admirable clarity, but sometimes you can't help agreeing with Hobbes that "to understand this for sense it is not required that a man should be a geometrician or a logician, but that he should be mad". One physicist cited in the book says: "I would be happy if I was completely wrong - but made a lot of people think." Chown certainly succeeds at that.