Book Review: Paul Davies - "The Cosmic Jackpot"
It's been a couple of weeks since I've finished reading the book "Cosmic Jackpot" by Paul Davies (ISBN: 978-0618592265) and I'm still impressed by this wonderful book. Paul Davies is physicist and cosmologist and has written a number of popular science books on cosmology. In "The Cosmic Jackpot" Davies discusses one of the fundamental questions of cosmology and philosophy: "Why is the universe fit for life?"
Before discussing possible answers of why the universe allowed for the development of life, Davies' book takes the reader on a journey and explains the basic concepts of particle physics and cosmology. While I've read a number of articles on these and related topics, I think the Davies' explanations are much more clear and to the point than many other articles. Davies has an unusual talent of giving the reader an introduction almost without any mathematics, but avoids falling into the trap of oversimplifying the topics.
Davies explains the development of the universe from the big bang to today. He explains why the development of life in the universe critically depends on specific properties of the universe, for example the distribution of mass after the big bang, the weight of subatomic particles, or the value of certain physical constants. Thought experiments of physicists have shown, that if these properties would differ only sightly from their actual values, the development of life as we observe it today would be impossible. Consequently, the development of life could have been pure coincidence.
This observation has puzzled numerous physicists and philosophers. Some have rejected the idea of life being a product of coincidence, some have been motivated to work on theories that explain the existence of life in the universe, without blaming it on pure coincidence. Over the course of the book Davies introduces a number of these theories that range from "everything is coincidence" over the "multiverse theory" that predicts an infinite number of parallel universes, an explanation relying on an external god-like creator to the belief that the universe is only a projection of our mind. Being a physicist by profession Davies stresses the theories that base on a solid mathematical foundation. But he also provides some insightful discussions of the more philosophical or even religious approches for an explanation of life from the perspective of a scientist.
I found reading the book very inspiring. It provides a readable and entertaining introduction to cosmology and discusses some of the recent ideas on how the universe can be explained. I can highly recommend reading this book.
Written February 24th, 2008