A disturbing, riveting, and ultimately hopeful call to arms.
A fascinating and frightening exploration of how “the very future is in danger, as it has never been before, both from an array of cosmic and earthbound threats and from the very technologies that have helped make us so prosperous.”
Today, assessing the risk of human extinction—and preparing to react to existential threats—has become a science the world can’t afford to ignore. For generations, writes Time reporter and editor Walsh, the idea of a single event threatening to end mankind has dominated the box office: “The bloodier and more dystopic, it seems, the more we love it—as long as we’re watching, and not participating.” But are we taking the underlying reality that seeds these ideas seriously? In this unflinching and insightful book, the author delivers all of the gritty details about the most likely end-times events, often contextualizing modern-day threats with historical catastrophes, somber reminders that the vast majority of Earth’s species are extinct and that humans are unlikely to be an exception. While human ingenuity has resulted in technologies that may predict and prevent a world-ending natural disaster, advances such as nuclear weapons or synthetic biology have the potential to do irreparable harm if they fall into the wrong hands. Not to mention the threat of climate change, which may end humanity over a period of many years, or a supervirus, which could do the job in just a few months. And yet, the author argues, people are generally unable to accept that nothing about the future is guaranteed—a psychological blind spot that may be our undoing. Luckily, there is a cadre of brilliant scientists working on the cutting edge of preventing catastrophe, and Walsh delves deep into their mindsets and research. An engaging writer, the author is most compelling when he outlines “how our species can survive the unsurvivable” through planning, perseverance, and an unshakable desire to carry on.
A disturbing, riveting, and ultimately hopeful call to arms.Pub Date: Aug. 27, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-316-44961-8
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Hachette
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2019
A quirky wonder of a book.
A Peabody Award–winning NPR science reporter chronicles the life of a turn-of-the-century scientist and how her quest led to significant revelations about the meaning of order, chaos, and her own existence.
Miller began doing research on David Starr Jordan (1851-1931) to understand how he had managed to carry on after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake destroyed his work. A taxonomist who is credited with discovering “a full fifth of fish known to man in his day,” Jordan had amassed an unparalleled collection of ichthyological specimens. Gathering up all the fish he could save, Jordan sewed the nameplates that had been on the destroyed jars directly onto the fish. His perseverance intrigued the author, who also discusses the struggles she underwent after her affair with a woman ended a heterosexual relationship. Born into an upstate New York farm family, Jordan attended Cornell and then became an itinerant scholar and field researcher until he landed at Indiana University, where his first ichthyological collection was destroyed by lightning. In between this catastrophe and others involving family members’ deaths, he reconstructed his collection. Later, he was appointed as the founding president of Stanford, where he evolved into a Machiavellian figure who trampled on colleagues and sang the praises of eugenics. Miller concludes that Jordan displayed the characteristics of someone who relied on “positive illusions” to rebound from disaster and that his stand on eugenics came from a belief in “a divine hierarchy from bacteria to humans that point[ed]…toward better.” Considering recent research that negates biological hierarchies, the author then suggests that Jordan’s beloved taxonomic category—fish—does not exist. Part biography, part science report, and part meditation on how the chaos that caused Miller’s existential misery could also bring self-acceptance and a loving wife, this unique book is an ingenious celebration of diversity and the mysterious order that underlies all existence.
A quirky wonder of a book.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5011-6027-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
An intriguing meditation on the nature of the universe and our attempts to understand it that should appeal to both...
Italian theoretical physicist Rovelli (General Relativity: The Most Beautiful of Theories, 2015, etc.) shares his thoughts on the broader scientific and philosophical implications of the great revolution that has taken place over the past century.
These seven lessons, which first appeared as articles in the Sunday supplement of the Italian newspaper Sole 24 Ore, are addressed to readers with little knowledge of physics. In less than 100 pages, the author, who teaches physics in both France and the United States, cogently covers the great accomplishments of the past and the open questions still baffling physicists today. In the first lesson, he focuses on Einstein's theory of general relativity. He describes Einstein's recognition that gravity "is not diffused through space [but] is that space itself" as "a stroke of pure genius." In the second lesson, Rovelli deals with the puzzling features of quantum physics that challenge our picture of reality. In the remaining sections, the author introduces the constant fluctuations of atoms, the granular nature of space, and more. "It is hardly surprising that there are more things in heaven and earth, dear reader, than have been dreamed of in our philosophy—or in our physics,” he writes. Rovelli also discusses the issues raised in loop quantum gravity, a theory that he co-developed. These issues lead to his extraordinary claim that the passage of time is not fundamental but rather derived from the granular nature of space. The author suggests that there have been two separate pathways throughout human history: mythology and the accumulation of knowledge through observation. He believes that scientists today share the same curiosity about nature exhibited by early man.
An intriguing meditation on the nature of the universe and our attempts to understand it that should appeal to both scientists and general readers.Pub Date: March 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-399-18441-3
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2015
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