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How the Universe Got Its Spots: Diary of a Finite Time in a Finite Space
Is the universe infinite or just really big? With this question, the gifted young cosmologist Janna Levin not only announces the central theme of her intriguing and controversial new book but establishes herself as one of the most direct and unorthodox voices in contemporary science. For even as she sets out to determine how big “really big” may be, Levin gives us an intimate look at the day-to-day life of a globe-trotting physicist, complete with jet lag and romantic disturbances.
Nimbly synthesizing geometry, topology, chaos and string theories, Levin shows how the pattern of hot and cold spots left over from the big bang may one day reveal the size and shape of the cosmos. She does so with such originality, lucidity—and even poetry—that How the Universe Got Its Spots becomes a thrilling and deeply personal communication between a scientist and the lay reader.
Nimbly synthesizing geometry, topology, chaos and string theories, Levin shows how the pattern of hot and cold spots left over from the big bang may one day reveal the size and shape of the cosmos. She does so with such originality, lucidity—and even poetry—that How the Universe Got Its Spots becomes a thrilling and deeply personal communication between a scientist and the lay reader.
240 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2002
About the author
Janna Levin
8 books376 followersJanna Levin, a Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Barnard College of Columbia University, holds a BA in Physics and Astronomy with a concentration in Philosophy from Barnard College of Columbia University, and a PhD in Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Her scientific research mainly centers around the Early Universe, Chaos, and Black Holes.
Dr. Levin's first book, "How the Universe Got Its Spots: Diary of a Finite Time in a Finite Space," is a widely popular science book following her personal recollections, as well as scientific studies, in letter format. Her second book, "A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines" (Knopf, 2006), won the PEN/Bingham Fellowship for writers that "honors an exceptionally talented fiction writer whose debut work... represents distinguished literary achievement..."
Dr. Levin also has written a series of essays to accompany exhibitions at galleries in England and been featured on several radio and television programs.
Dr. Levin's first book, "How the Universe Got Its Spots: Diary of a Finite Time in a Finite Space," is a widely popular science book following her personal recollections, as well as scientific studies, in letter format. Her second book, "A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines" (Knopf, 2006), won the PEN/Bingham Fellowship for writers that "honors an exceptionally talented fiction writer whose debut work... represents distinguished literary achievement..."
Dr. Levin also has written a series of essays to accompany exhibitions at galleries in England and been featured on several radio and television programs.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 140 reviews
October 31, 2017
This book is pretty easy to read. There is some geometry but almost no formulas; the reading level is like Scientific American. The author is a master of making a complex subject easy to understand with analogies and simple diagrams.
The book is structured as a series of letters to the author’s mother and the author intersperses personal details of her friends and love life. She is constantly shifting residences as she migrates between cities in California and England. (She's at Columbia now.) Her love life is: crazy math/physics chick meets totally unstable male musician. You don't want to live in the apartment next door to them. The book is written with feeling and humor.
Fundamentally the work focuses on the state of the universe using an analogy of triangles. Is the universe stable, like a normal triangle drawn on a flat surface? Or is it expanding, symbolized by a bulging triangle drawn on a sphere? Or is it a collapsing universe, symbolized by a triangle drawn on a saddle where the sides of the triangle bow inwards? The geometry also relates to whether or not the universe is finite or infinite. Levin believes it is finite but that view may be an unprovable proposition because it may be finite but too big for us to ever see the end of it.
You are here (somewhere):
You get the strong sense that people with this kind of mathematical genius are fragile and a bit uncomfortable with their feet touching the world the rest of us live in.
photo of the author from hudsonvalleyone.com
The book is structured as a series of letters to the author’s mother and the author intersperses personal details of her friends and love life. She is constantly shifting residences as she migrates between cities in California and England. (She's at Columbia now.) Her love life is: crazy math/physics chick meets totally unstable male musician. You don't want to live in the apartment next door to them. The book is written with feeling and humor.
Fundamentally the work focuses on the state of the universe using an analogy of triangles. Is the universe stable, like a normal triangle drawn on a flat surface? Or is it expanding, symbolized by a bulging triangle drawn on a sphere? Or is it a collapsing universe, symbolized by a triangle drawn on a saddle where the sides of the triangle bow inwards? The geometry also relates to whether or not the universe is finite or infinite. Levin believes it is finite but that view may be an unprovable proposition because it may be finite but too big for us to ever see the end of it.
You are here (somewhere):
You get the strong sense that people with this kind of mathematical genius are fragile and a bit uncomfortable with their feet touching the world the rest of us live in.
photo of the author from hudsonvalleyone.com
March 18, 2019
I thought this little primer on physics was perfectly delightful. I've never seen anyone explain physics in quite this way before, but it was absolutely charming. The biggest points (for me) were on the topology of the universe. Geometry trumps General Relativity. For, as we know, neither General Relativity or Quantum Physics can describe the actual shape of the universe. No predictive power at all.
But then, even Einstein said there would have to be yet another comprehensive paradigm shift.
I personally like to think that all science will always have to do successive paradigm shifts as if it, too, followed the Marxian axiom. It means there will never be an end to learning, and THAT is something gorgeous to behold. :)
ANYWAY, back to this book. Levin's prose takes the highly unusual tack of posing as letters to her mom, being awesomely personal and revealing while also illustrating just how much she loves the science she does. The mix, far from being awkward, turns the whole struggle and acquisition of knowledge into an end that we can all admire greatly. It also makes it REAL in a way I rarely see in these kinds of non-fiction books. Or perhaps it's not all that rare, because I do get a very awesome sense of the people for whom the science is everything, but in her case, I just feel love, sympathy, and shared joy.
This is not your standard boilerplate introductory pop-sci text. Rather, it is a personal and gorgeous love-note to the ideas that shine so bright, always asking more questions, demanding more sacrifices, and, in the end, revealing even more of the universe.
Totes respect.
But then, even Einstein said there would have to be yet another comprehensive paradigm shift.
I personally like to think that all science will always have to do successive paradigm shifts as if it, too, followed the Marxian axiom. It means there will never be an end to learning, and THAT is something gorgeous to behold. :)
ANYWAY, back to this book. Levin's prose takes the highly unusual tack of posing as letters to her mom, being awesomely personal and revealing while also illustrating just how much she loves the science she does. The mix, far from being awkward, turns the whole struggle and acquisition of knowledge into an end that we can all admire greatly. It also makes it REAL in a way I rarely see in these kinds of non-fiction books. Or perhaps it's not all that rare, because I do get a very awesome sense of the people for whom the science is everything, but in her case, I just feel love, sympathy, and shared joy.
This is not your standard boilerplate introductory pop-sci text. Rather, it is a personal and gorgeous love-note to the ideas that shine so bright, always asking more questions, demanding more sacrifices, and, in the end, revealing even more of the universe.
Totes respect.
July 11, 2017
In short: Janna Levin explains scientific theory so well that she may have just changed my freakin life.
I'm kidding. Kind of. But we'll get there.
First Dimension: this is an exceptionally lucid piece of writing.
Levin, a cosmologist who here argues for a finite universe, traces the lineage of her theory with remarkable logic & clarity -- remarkable, because for the first time, I sort of understand general relativity. No really guys; this is big. I love reading pop-science, but there are moments when my brain glazes over. I'll tell myself I get the gist and just move on to the next idea. Not so here: anything Levin explained, I actually got. Sometimes it took a couple chapters, but I ended the book with a clear concept of all topics & theories discussed. What the hell.
Second Dimension: this is a beautiful piece of writing.
Unsurprisingly: A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines, Levin's 'novel' written a few years after this was published, is stunning (and one of my all-time favourite books). Both pieces show emotive intensity in the turns of phrase and juxtapositions; both are rife with an awareness of the aesthetic. Clear, and also sparkling.
Third Dimension: this is a literary piece of writing.
Near the end of Spots, Levin suggests that art and science are linguistic expressions of the same human essence. Hard to argue that. This is structured as a series of diary entries/letters, covering both personal and theoretical ground. Each entry starts with a short anecdote (sometimes shifted in time for the sake of logical flow) that relates to the concept being discussed. Though this could easily get kinda tired, it doesn't: it lends the less scientifically-minded reader a foothold, and humanizes the entire thing. And that, of course, is key: these big theories only matter if we care, and you can't help but care about Levin's shaky, uncertain journey through distance, relationships, and cosmology. The rest follows. And the last page is one of the best I've read, fiction or otherwise: a literary ending if ever there was one, but so perfectly aligned with the theory of time she'd just wrapped up. Life is an expression of something we can't yet fathom.
Fourth Dimension: this is writing that shows process.
In that art/science chapter, Levin mentions Turing, then Godel, and connects them in a brief sentence. Knowing what's to come (i.e. Madman, which fictionalized-ly explores the lives of both), HOW TOTALLY FRICKIN COOL. Was that the genesis of the whole thing? Had she already started Book #2 and just dropped a hindsight easter egg? Just a coincidence? Regardless, process and method infuse this book -- logic and progression in theory, from Newton to Einstein to Lee Smolin; coming to terms and conclusions, for Levin. It's obvious, but organic, and it draws attention not only to how we structure our theories, but our thoughts.
Fifth Dimension: this is writing that inspires process.
There's a thought experiment about fingers and dimensions, here, that I've forced on everyone in the past two days. General gist: if you live & perceive only in two dimensions and were to be shown three-dimensional fingers, you would not have the capacity to see that they are connected at the root (up and down would be as alien to you as a fourth dimension is to us). That does not, however, change that these fingers are connected to something much, much larger: individual expressions of a mammoth being.
Without getting into too much detail -- as I copied out a passage from this book, several moments from my past clicked into place. Reading Gravity's Rainbow and the consequent spur towards literary academia. A persistent adolescent obsession with theoretical physics & string theory. Jungian archetypes and my childhood love of mythology & the Golden Thread. Finding my first Steve Erickson, which was actually my second, because perception varies and the observer defines the moment. And all of it coalescing.
I don't know enough about quantum mechanics; physics; string theory --- yet. But I know there is something vibrating, deeply and without pause, and the connections are everywhere.
Janna Levin, girl, you're pulsing with thousands of them. Anyone who needs some possibility radiated your way: head hers.
I'm kidding. Kind of. But we'll get there.
First Dimension: this is an exceptionally lucid piece of writing.
Levin, a cosmologist who here argues for a finite universe, traces the lineage of her theory with remarkable logic & clarity -- remarkable, because for the first time, I sort of understand general relativity. No really guys; this is big. I love reading pop-science, but there are moments when my brain glazes over. I'll tell myself I get the gist and just move on to the next idea. Not so here: anything Levin explained, I actually got. Sometimes it took a couple chapters, but I ended the book with a clear concept of all topics & theories discussed. What the hell.
Second Dimension: this is a beautiful piece of writing.
Unsurprisingly: A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines, Levin's 'novel' written a few years after this was published, is stunning (and one of my all-time favourite books). Both pieces show emotive intensity in the turns of phrase and juxtapositions; both are rife with an awareness of the aesthetic. Clear, and also sparkling.
Third Dimension: this is a literary piece of writing.
Near the end of Spots, Levin suggests that art and science are linguistic expressions of the same human essence. Hard to argue that. This is structured as a series of diary entries/letters, covering both personal and theoretical ground. Each entry starts with a short anecdote (sometimes shifted in time for the sake of logical flow) that relates to the concept being discussed. Though this could easily get kinda tired, it doesn't: it lends the less scientifically-minded reader a foothold, and humanizes the entire thing. And that, of course, is key: these big theories only matter if we care, and you can't help but care about Levin's shaky, uncertain journey through distance, relationships, and cosmology. The rest follows. And the last page is one of the best I've read, fiction or otherwise: a literary ending if ever there was one, but so perfectly aligned with the theory of time she'd just wrapped up. Life is an expression of something we can't yet fathom.
Fourth Dimension: this is writing that shows process.
In that art/science chapter, Levin mentions Turing, then Godel, and connects them in a brief sentence. Knowing what's to come (i.e. Madman, which fictionalized-ly explores the lives of both), HOW TOTALLY FRICKIN COOL. Was that the genesis of the whole thing? Had she already started Book #2 and just dropped a hindsight easter egg? Just a coincidence? Regardless, process and method infuse this book -- logic and progression in theory, from Newton to Einstein to Lee Smolin; coming to terms and conclusions, for Levin. It's obvious, but organic, and it draws attention not only to how we structure our theories, but our thoughts.
Fifth Dimension: this is writing that inspires process.
There's a thought experiment about fingers and dimensions, here, that I've forced on everyone in the past two days. General gist: if you live & perceive only in two dimensions and were to be shown three-dimensional fingers, you would not have the capacity to see that they are connected at the root (up and down would be as alien to you as a fourth dimension is to us). That does not, however, change that these fingers are connected to something much, much larger: individual expressions of a mammoth being.
Without getting into too much detail -- as I copied out a passage from this book, several moments from my past clicked into place. Reading Gravity's Rainbow and the consequent spur towards literary academia. A persistent adolescent obsession with theoretical physics & string theory. Jungian archetypes and my childhood love of mythology & the Golden Thread. Finding my first Steve Erickson, which was actually my second, because perception varies and the observer defines the moment. And all of it coalescing.
I don't know enough about quantum mechanics; physics; string theory --- yet. But I know there is something vibrating, deeply and without pause, and the connections are everywhere.
Janna Levin, girl, you're pulsing with thousands of them. Anyone who needs some possibility radiated your way: head hers.
February 24, 2023
16th book for 2023.
In Jana Levin's book "How the Universe Got Its Spots: Diary of a Finite Time in a Finite Space" Levin combines, in the form of a diary personal day-to-day experiences as a young postdoctoral researcher, with an exploration of the nature of the ultimate topography of Universe—investigating in depth the implications of Einstein's theory of general relativity to modern cosmology; in particular the connection between matter and the geometry of spacetime. She argues that the Universe is finite, and that its structure, its origin and subsequent evolution, can be deduced from mathematical modelling of the patterns in the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation (i.e., the Universe's spots) observed by NASAs 1989 COBE mission.
While the book is somewhat dated now (2002), and so naturally its scientific questions have evolved since then, it is still an interesting window in the questions of regarding the potential topography of the Universe. In addition, Levin personal anecdotes throughout the book illustrate the personal cost of scientific discovery, as well as the excitement and challenges faced by researchers early in their careers.
4-stars.
In Jana Levin's book "How the Universe Got Its Spots: Diary of a Finite Time in a Finite Space" Levin combines, in the form of a diary personal day-to-day experiences as a young postdoctoral researcher, with an exploration of the nature of the ultimate topography of Universe—investigating in depth the implications of Einstein's theory of general relativity to modern cosmology; in particular the connection between matter and the geometry of spacetime. She argues that the Universe is finite, and that its structure, its origin and subsequent evolution, can be deduced from mathematical modelling of the patterns in the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation (i.e., the Universe's spots) observed by NASAs 1989 COBE mission.
While the book is somewhat dated now (2002), and so naturally its scientific questions have evolved since then, it is still an interesting window in the questions of regarding the potential topography of the Universe. In addition, Levin personal anecdotes throughout the book illustrate the personal cost of scientific discovery, as well as the excitement and challenges faced by researchers early in their careers.
4-stars.
March 18, 2009
My family has a joke that there are three kinds of math: Math, hard math and math that will make you cry. I for one crashed and burned spectacularly on the easy end of hard math. But this doesn’t mean that I don’t want to know about math that will make you cry. Janna Levin is great at taking complex/mind bending mathematics and explain the theory and idea behind it without actually using math. She explains it with passion and intelligence and acknowledgement of her own limitations and the limitations of the field as it stands today (or 2001 when the diary ends).
I can’t wait for whatever non-math-that-will-make-you-cry works comes next because I know I can’t read any of her technical papers.
I can’t wait for whatever non-math-that-will-make-you-cry works comes next because I know I can’t read any of her technical papers.
April 26, 2011
You might have come across Janna Levin's How the Universe Got Its Spots the same way that I did—by seeing it show up in io9's "20 Science Books Every Scifi Fan (and Writer) Should Read", or some such similar list of "must read" science books. Of Levin's book, io9's Annalee Newitz writes:
Which is a pretty good characterization for ≈60 words. What's left out of that 60-word characterization is that Levin (like Smolin—who happens to be a good friend of Levin's [1]) waxes elegiac over the scientist's role in the life of science, and science's role in the life of the scientist. [2] Not that How the Universe Got Its Spots is some 200-plus-page dirge of miserable introspection into a scientist's regret—far from it, Levin is engaged and enthusiastic about the science just as often as she is stymied and despondent. What Levin gives us is a highly readable book—half of it personal musings on her at-times-troubled life as a scientist and the other half a layman's-terms explanation of modern cosmological research—a treatise cast as a diary of letters to her mother, and ultimately a book about topology's role in in cosmology, asking one of the most difficult questions facing physics: Is the universe really infinite? or just really big? (And if it isn't infinite: what shape is it?)
AN ASIDE ABOUT OUR COLLECTIVE (OR MAYBE JUST MY PERSONAL) FIXATION ON PHYSICS
It is probably worth noting that no other science is really emblematic of The Whole Big Shebang of Science quite like physics. Maybe we can blame Einstein for that—good ol' Albert Einstein. The Einstein that gets mentioned in every modern book about physics, all of them paying homage to his pivotal role in the discipline. The Einstein whose crazy-haired mustached visage shows up as the icon of science throughout 20th century popular culture. The Einstein that seems infinitely quotable from his writings and instantly relatable from every anecdote ever told about him. The Einstein who was maybe right about almost everything, or almost right about maybe everything, and/but definitely wrong about a few things because of... not quite hubris, but a kind of stubborn younger brother to it. (Making him all the more relatable: see? he's just as fallible as us!)
Or maybe we get stuck on physics when we get stuck on science because it's... a (the?) science of everything? Physics: the science that attempts to describe and explain the very very smallest things and thus must be in all other sciences. Physics: the science that attempts to describe and explain the very very largest things and thus must encompass all other sciences. Physics: indistinguishable from math to so many layman, but also equally indistinguishable (to those same layman) from chemistry, thus deriving biology, psychology, engineering.... Physics: the seed for our science fiction fantasies of time travel, of trans-light speeds, wormhole portals, self-organizing and self-aware nanomachines, etc.
Yes, indeed: that physics.
END OF ASIDE: A LITTLE MORE ABOUT LEVIN'S BOOK
One thing that separates Levin's book from so many other physics books that I've read is its focus. Feynman, Greene, Hawking, and Smolin—they all give us great books [3] but they're tackling so much—arguably too much. Physics without some dangling sub-discipline of a qualifier is a big subject—perhaps the biggest and broadest subject. The best you could hope for (in most cases) is a halfway decent survey that glosses over the basics of the fundamentals. If you're really ambitious, you could spin this off into a discussion of your chosen specific area; but if you're trying to keep the appeal of your book pretty broad (read: "accessible to lay-folk") then you're almost certainly doomed to recounting a bunch of personal anecdotes that shed little (if any) useful light on the subject matter.
How do you get around that?
Do what Janna Levin did: don't try to cover all of physics, just focus on your area. Even if your area is niche. Especially if your area is niche.
Levin still gives us what I've come to think of as "The Obligatory Digest of Modern Fundamental Physics that You Should Have Learned in College (or Your Fancy High School)"; but she glosses over some stuff covered in other Physics--but-Accessible-for-Laymen books—and this is more than "just fine", because every principle of physics that she describes is laser-focused on getting to her point(s) about infinities and about topology and how those fit in with cosmology and (more specifically) how they fit in with her specific questions about cosmology—all of that "is the universe finite?" and "what exactly is the shape of the universe?" stuff. It is all very endearing because she knows better than to bore her readers with every detail of modern physics—those books are all already out there—and instead she focuses on painting a vivid and fascinating picture of the known universe and asks one of those difficult and/but so-obvious-and-yet-so-arcane questions about that known universe. You cannot help but get swept up in her prose [4]—there is science, but there is also a story.
And there's where that star slips off the rating—dropping from a full five to four. Levin is such a great writer, and her own story is so important to the telling of her cosmological tale, and she is so articulate about the science... but I could have used another fifty pages about that same science. I was left with some unanswered questions (e.g., "Tell me more about your theories on the size/shape of the universe...") and with that feeling that I was biting my tongue, waiting for the other shoe to drop on string theory (which gets a little lampooned over the whole "no one knows what the 'M' in 'M-theory' means" thing, but then also gets an oblique bye on a technicality related to the attractiveness/convenience of having so many dimensions [5]).
Nutshell version? Levin brought us a beautiful book about modern cosmology, and about the life of a young scientist; and I recommend it to everyone with even a passing interest in science, and especially as a companion piece to Lee Smolin's The Trouble with Physics .
----
[1] : Levin's and Smolin's book should be distributed as a box-set. The themes are so close and inform each other so well that you're really missing out if you don't put the messages of both books together.
[2] : And the scientist's loved ones.
[3] : I'm being generous to Greene though; really only the first third (first half?) of The Elegant Universe is great; the rest is basically navel-gazing. (And Hawking's book borders on that a few times but is also mercifully much shorter than Greene's.)
[4] : And that's what it is, too: prose. Maybe she has some secret advantage over other physics writers. Feynman was humorous; Greene is lucid; Hawking is accessible; Smolin is cogent; but only Levin is expressive enough to really have a physics book that also qualifies as having "prose".
[5] : I'll spare readers of this review yet another of my rantings/ravings about string theory. I'll just recommend Smolin's The Trouble with Physics again. (And sure: go for Greene's The Elegant Universe to get the whole picture; but it is getting harder to convince me that string theorists have their collective shit together enough to deserve continued funding.)
Levin is a physicist who studies the origins of the universe, and is also a writer whose language is both clear and poetic. Something about cosmology invites poetic meditations, and Levin manages to combine somewhat melancholy explorations of her own place in the universe with complicated physics formulas to create one of the most interesting books you'll ever read.
Which is a pretty good characterization for ≈60 words. What's left out of that 60-word characterization is that Levin (like Smolin—who happens to be a good friend of Levin's [1]) waxes elegiac over the scientist's role in the life of science, and science's role in the life of the scientist. [2] Not that How the Universe Got Its Spots is some 200-plus-page dirge of miserable introspection into a scientist's regret—far from it, Levin is engaged and enthusiastic about the science just as often as she is stymied and despondent. What Levin gives us is a highly readable book—half of it personal musings on her at-times-troubled life as a scientist and the other half a layman's-terms explanation of modern cosmological research—a treatise cast as a diary of letters to her mother, and ultimately a book about topology's role in in cosmology, asking one of the most difficult questions facing physics: Is the universe really infinite? or just really big? (And if it isn't infinite: what shape is it?)
AN ASIDE ABOUT OUR COLLECTIVE (OR MAYBE JUST MY PERSONAL) FIXATION ON PHYSICS
It is probably worth noting that no other science is really emblematic of The Whole Big Shebang of Science quite like physics. Maybe we can blame Einstein for that—good ol' Albert Einstein. The Einstein that gets mentioned in every modern book about physics, all of them paying homage to his pivotal role in the discipline. The Einstein whose crazy-haired mustached visage shows up as the icon of science throughout 20th century popular culture. The Einstein that seems infinitely quotable from his writings and instantly relatable from every anecdote ever told about him. The Einstein who was maybe right about almost everything, or almost right about maybe everything, and/but definitely wrong about a few things because of... not quite hubris, but a kind of stubborn younger brother to it. (Making him all the more relatable: see? he's just as fallible as us!)
Or maybe we get stuck on physics when we get stuck on science because it's... a (the?) science of everything? Physics: the science that attempts to describe and explain the very very smallest things and thus must be in all other sciences. Physics: the science that attempts to describe and explain the very very largest things and thus must encompass all other sciences. Physics: indistinguishable from math to so many layman, but also equally indistinguishable (to those same layman) from chemistry, thus deriving biology, psychology, engineering.... Physics: the seed for our science fiction fantasies of time travel, of trans-light speeds, wormhole portals, self-organizing and self-aware nanomachines, etc.
Yes, indeed: that physics.
END OF ASIDE: A LITTLE MORE ABOUT LEVIN'S BOOK
One thing that separates Levin's book from so many other physics books that I've read is its focus. Feynman, Greene, Hawking, and Smolin—they all give us great books [3] but they're tackling so much—arguably too much. Physics without some dangling sub-discipline of a qualifier is a big subject—perhaps the biggest and broadest subject. The best you could hope for (in most cases) is a halfway decent survey that glosses over the basics of the fundamentals. If you're really ambitious, you could spin this off into a discussion of your chosen specific area; but if you're trying to keep the appeal of your book pretty broad (read: "accessible to lay-folk") then you're almost certainly doomed to recounting a bunch of personal anecdotes that shed little (if any) useful light on the subject matter.
How do you get around that?
Do what Janna Levin did: don't try to cover all of physics, just focus on your area. Even if your area is niche. Especially if your area is niche.
Levin still gives us what I've come to think of as "The Obligatory Digest of Modern Fundamental Physics that You Should Have Learned in College (or Your Fancy High School)"; but she glosses over some stuff covered in other Physics--but-Accessible-for-Laymen books—and this is more than "just fine", because every principle of physics that she describes is laser-focused on getting to her point(s) about infinities and about topology and how those fit in with cosmology and (more specifically) how they fit in with her specific questions about cosmology—all of that "is the universe finite?" and "what exactly is the shape of the universe?" stuff. It is all very endearing because she knows better than to bore her readers with every detail of modern physics—those books are all already out there—and instead she focuses on painting a vivid and fascinating picture of the known universe and asks one of those difficult and/but so-obvious-and-yet-so-arcane questions about that known universe. You cannot help but get swept up in her prose [4]—there is science, but there is also a story.
And there's where that star slips off the rating—dropping from a full five to four. Levin is such a great writer, and her own story is so important to the telling of her cosmological tale, and she is so articulate about the science... but I could have used another fifty pages about that same science. I was left with some unanswered questions (e.g., "Tell me more about your theories on the size/shape of the universe...") and with that feeling that I was biting my tongue, waiting for the other shoe to drop on string theory (which gets a little lampooned over the whole "no one knows what the 'M' in 'M-theory' means" thing, but then also gets an oblique bye on a technicality related to the attractiveness/convenience of having so many dimensions [5]).
Nutshell version? Levin brought us a beautiful book about modern cosmology, and about the life of a young scientist; and I recommend it to everyone with even a passing interest in science, and especially as a companion piece to Lee Smolin's The Trouble with Physics .
----
[1] : Levin's and Smolin's book should be distributed as a box-set. The themes are so close and inform each other so well that you're really missing out if you don't put the messages of both books together.
[2] : And the scientist's loved ones.
[3] : I'm being generous to Greene though; really only the first third (first half?) of The Elegant Universe is great; the rest is basically navel-gazing. (And Hawking's book borders on that a few times but is also mercifully much shorter than Greene's.)
[4] : And that's what it is, too: prose. Maybe she has some secret advantage over other physics writers. Feynman was humorous; Greene is lucid; Hawking is accessible; Smolin is cogent; but only Levin is expressive enough to really have a physics book that also qualifies as having "prose".
[5] : I'll spare readers of this review yet another of my rantings/ravings about string theory. I'll just recommend Smolin's The Trouble with Physics again. (And sure: go for Greene's The Elegant Universe to get the whole picture; but it is getting harder to convince me that string theorists have their collective shit together enough to deserve continued funding.)
February 23, 2014
If the title sounds clever and you're not sure why, it's a play on Rudyard Kipling's tale of "How the Leopard Got Its Spots." The answer to that question is mentioned in passing in this book: there is differentiation in the concentration of chemicals bathing the leopard's skin in utero. The universe also has spots, which is to say that there is some lumpiness (although not nearly so much as you would think from your day-to-day experience) in the cosmic stuff still spewing "away" (kind of) from the big bang. The question of where the spots came from turns out to be a little trickier for the universe than it is for the leopard. Let's just say that small quantum uncertainties within the first bizarrely small fraction of a second of the universe's existence could have galactic-scale implications a few trillion years down the road, and hope that we sound pretty smart and that there are no follow-up questions.
Any follow-up questions? No? Good.
The title is actually so clever that it got used even though it doesn't really match the book. Levin isn't especially interested in how the universe got its spots. What she's interested in is how observing the patterns in those spots might allow us, if we were stupendously lucky, to determine the shape of the universe and figure out whether it is finite or infinite, and if the latter how infinite. (Yeah, I know, "how infinite" seems a little dodgy. She explains it.) And even if we weren't that lucky, checking out the pattern of spots, particularly in the background microwave radiation that suffuses the cosmos, might at least allow us to weed out some theories and refine others about how this universe we live in works.
By "us," I of course mean brainy physics types.
By "background microwave radiation," I mean a concept in cosmology that Levin explains over the course of her book. She also explains such scary concepts as relativity -- special and general! -- dimensionality, topology, string theory, and chaos theory. There are probably plenty of books that try to explain these things, but I doubt any of them are as chatty as this one. Levin's book, couched as a series of letters to her mother, mixes and matches the concepts that underlie her work with personal stories about the decline and fall of a relationship, what it's like to commute back and forth between California and England, how she furnishes her new apartment, and the like. It is kind of weird, but if the point was to try to humanize theoretical physics and imply that it can be comprehended by ordinary folks with ordinary problems, it is actually kind of successful. The bits where Levin anguishes over whether she should get a new apartment or not have the added advantage of requiring very little effort, which lets you build up a good reading head of steam and get some momentum going for when she gets back to the point and ponders the implications of whether the universe is flat, positively curved, or negatively curved. Like I say, it's kind of weird, but it's also quite readable.
I know just enough about cosmology to know that this book is a bit out of date, but not enough to be able to put my finger on exactly how. But Levin knew when writing it in 2000 that it would have a fairly short shelf-life, and refers several times to the exciting new information that will be flooding in over the next couple of years from new satellite missions. Those new satellites are satellites of the past now, of course, and the flood of data that they provided has been fuel to the brisk growth in our astronomical knowledge in the last decade or so. Did you not know that astronomy was booming? It is! Concept for concept, it has probably been the most productive field of human inquiry over the last fifteen years or so.
Prognosis: How the Universe Got Its Spots is a pretty good book! I think everybody should make a good-faith effort to get their head around the basics of relativity and quantum physics, too. It's not like this stuff is particularly new and revolutionary, and it can't hurt to understand how the world works at a very basic level. Plus, it's interesting.
But the question at hand is, is Spots the right book for the job? Answer: it's not a bad pick, if you've got a copy available. If not, there are probably others, maybe newer ones, that could also do the trick. If you know of any really good ones, leave a pointer in the comments. The IAT readership craves ever to better understand the physical universe!
August 27, 2023
I like physics. And this is a cool look at how the universe may actually be finite.
March 9, 2019
This was great! Specialized but illuminating, she explains just what she needs to in order to make her specialty clear. The personal&professional details give an interesting and heartfelt picture of an academic life.
September 28, 2018
This is probably one of the most unique pop-sci books I've ever read—Janna Levin, a cosmologist who theorizes on the topology and geometry of the universe, and who advances the idea that the universe is finite, writes of the science behind relativity (general and special), black holes, string theory, and much more in the format of letters to her mother. The content of these letters vacillate seamlessly between ruminations on her personal life and the histories and backbones of cosmological science in a ruminative and poetic fashion.
Levin's skill is especially pronounced in her ability to distill her own severe intellect and clear obsession with these subjects into prose that is clever, literary, profound and also instills the same excitement and energy she has into the layperson reading.
While I've had a lot of exposure to these ideas and concepts in other books and in classes I took in college, never has it been so digestible to me as it has been coming from Levin. Especially helpful to my understanding was her section on the shape of the universe and discussing how we can use the metaphor of two dimensions to understand the hypothetical shapes of a finite universe.
Can't wait to read her other books—and I can't recommend enough her two hour PBS NOVA special from early 2018 on Black Holes called "Black Hole Apocalypse."
Levin's skill is especially pronounced in her ability to distill her own severe intellect and clear obsession with these subjects into prose that is clever, literary, profound and also instills the same excitement and energy she has into the layperson reading.
While I've had a lot of exposure to these ideas and concepts in other books and in classes I took in college, never has it been so digestible to me as it has been coming from Levin. Especially helpful to my understanding was her section on the shape of the universe and discussing how we can use the metaphor of two dimensions to understand the hypothetical shapes of a finite universe.
Can't wait to read her other books—and I can't recommend enough her two hour PBS NOVA special from early 2018 on Black Holes called "Black Hole Apocalypse."
January 24, 2013
Originally published on my blog here in October 2002.
It is not, generally speaking, usual for modern science books to be concerned with the private lives of their authors, even though it is inevitable that the scientific work that they have done will have been influenced by this. This is a result of the idea that scientific ideas should be valid without any cultural context, but the anecdotes which litter popular science books demonstrate how important some subjectivity is for interesting the reader - few people read textbooks for pleasure. An excellent example is Pais' 'Subtle is the Lord...', which is a biography of Einstein which places equal emphasis on his life story and an explanation of his ideas.
How the Universe Got Its Spots is based on a series of letters written by cosmologist Janna Levin to her mother, which seek to explain her work. I don't know how much Levin's mother already knew, but the letters don't presuppose significant amounts of scientific and mathematical education; which makes even writing the letters in the first place quite a brave thing to do; a parent is a far more difficult audience than some unknown reader. The letters also contain details of her personal life over a two year period, a diary of the gradual breakdown of Levin's relationship with musician Warren.
Levin's work is in the topology of cosmology, trying to come up with possible descriptions of the large scale shape and structure of the universe. This may be discernible as patterns in such measurements as the COBE map of variations in the cosmic background radiation. The ideas which are introduced to explain this include a fair amount of topology, which is one of the more entertaining branches of mathematics. The explanations of the ideas behind Levin's work are clear and simple (though as someone who has studied topology I might well not be a good judge).
It is for the combination of the science and the personal history that readers will pick up How the Universe Got Its Spots, however. The way that the two are put together makes the book reminiscent of a novel which was a bestseller a few years ago, Sophie's World by Jostein Gaardner. That book, though intended to introduce children to philosophy, was enjoyed by large numbers of adults; and if you liked it, you are pretty certain to like this.
It is not, generally speaking, usual for modern science books to be concerned with the private lives of their authors, even though it is inevitable that the scientific work that they have done will have been influenced by this. This is a result of the idea that scientific ideas should be valid without any cultural context, but the anecdotes which litter popular science books demonstrate how important some subjectivity is for interesting the reader - few people read textbooks for pleasure. An excellent example is Pais' 'Subtle is the Lord...', which is a biography of Einstein which places equal emphasis on his life story and an explanation of his ideas.
How the Universe Got Its Spots is based on a series of letters written by cosmologist Janna Levin to her mother, which seek to explain her work. I don't know how much Levin's mother already knew, but the letters don't presuppose significant amounts of scientific and mathematical education; which makes even writing the letters in the first place quite a brave thing to do; a parent is a far more difficult audience than some unknown reader. The letters also contain details of her personal life over a two year period, a diary of the gradual breakdown of Levin's relationship with musician Warren.
Levin's work is in the topology of cosmology, trying to come up with possible descriptions of the large scale shape and structure of the universe. This may be discernible as patterns in such measurements as the COBE map of variations in the cosmic background radiation. The ideas which are introduced to explain this include a fair amount of topology, which is one of the more entertaining branches of mathematics. The explanations of the ideas behind Levin's work are clear and simple (though as someone who has studied topology I might well not be a good judge).
It is for the combination of the science and the personal history that readers will pick up How the Universe Got Its Spots, however. The way that the two are put together makes the book reminiscent of a novel which was a bestseller a few years ago, Sophie's World by Jostein Gaardner. That book, though intended to introduce children to philosophy, was enjoyed by large numbers of adults; and if you liked it, you are pretty certain to like this.
March 17, 2011
This book is in the form of a series of unsent letters by the author to her mother about the shape of the universe. I don’t know why Levin thought this would be a good format for a pop-science book. Every chapter starts with a paragraph or two about her personal life, and then she abruptly goes back to relativity and quantum and topology. It’s all confusing. She shares details about her life that make you think: why are you telling us this stuff in this book? Like: she mentions in passing that she, the eminent theoretical physicist, is married to a high school dropout who follows her from location to location and grant to grant. And then not much more on the subject. Make up your mind, woman. Are you writing your diary or a book on (speculative) physics? Is she trying to tell us that theoretical physicists are human and have ordinary concerns too?
This the second book that I’ve read that is specifically about the shape of the universe. The other one (The Poincare Conjecture: In Search of the Shape of the Universe) was a better one in the treatment of the subject. The subject never fails to fascinate me. I’m still trying to visualize what it means for the universe to be finite but bounded – that you can get into a spaceship, travel straight ahead, never stopping and never turning, and eventually you’ll be back where you started! Amazing, isn’t it? It’s like going around on the surface of a globe and coming back to where you started. But here we’re talking about the three-dimensional space. You have to be able to visualize and accept that space is bended in some imaginary fourth dimension. The earth is behind you when your rocket shoots off, you go ahead in straight line, and after many billions of years you’ll see the earth appearing in front of you!
This the second book that I’ve read that is specifically about the shape of the universe. The other one (The Poincare Conjecture: In Search of the Shape of the Universe) was a better one in the treatment of the subject. The subject never fails to fascinate me. I’m still trying to visualize what it means for the universe to be finite but bounded – that you can get into a spaceship, travel straight ahead, never stopping and never turning, and eventually you’ll be back where you started! Amazing, isn’t it? It’s like going around on the surface of a globe and coming back to where you started. But here we’re talking about the three-dimensional space. You have to be able to visualize and accept that space is bended in some imaginary fourth dimension. The earth is behind you when your rocket shoots off, you go ahead in straight line, and after many billions of years you’ll see the earth appearing in front of you!
May 21, 2016
(Review from 2011) I have missed reading cosmology! Levin does the obligatory catching-the-reader-up-to-speed that every book on theoretical physics must dutifully accomplish, but she doesn't approach her review in the usual linear way, which was refreshing. So much information here, both history of science and new-ish as of 2000-2002 (dark matter or dark energy not discussed). Maybe Levin is not the most elegant writer of science for non-scientists, but she's not bad, and what she reveals about the itinerant lifestyle of an astrophysicist is really interesting [e.g. pgs 128-30].
Although most of the concepts (other than topology) weren't brand-new to me, I found the reading kind of slow going: I read fitfully, not fluidly/fluently. Here's a typical sentence: Just after the Planck time, as it is known, quantum gravity has yielded power to an era that is fairly well explained as a cosmology bound by the dictates of general relativity with some quantum fields living in it. Now none of those terms are terribly difficult if their definitions are understood, but I still stopped to think "Huh?" before reading it a second time.
I'll assume heavy re-writes to turn this from a purported journal intended for the author's mother to a quirky-but-publishable survey of topology and cosmology. I didn't mind the personal journal-writing bits, though they could have been integrated better (halfway through they seem to begin flowing better; or maybe I just got used to them).
Although most of the concepts (other than topology) weren't brand-new to me, I found the reading kind of slow going: I read fitfully, not fluidly/fluently. Here's a typical sentence: Just after the Planck time, as it is known, quantum gravity has yielded power to an era that is fairly well explained as a cosmology bound by the dictates of general relativity with some quantum fields living in it. Now none of those terms are terribly difficult if their definitions are understood, but I still stopped to think "Huh?" before reading it a second time.
I'll assume heavy re-writes to turn this from a purported journal intended for the author's mother to a quirky-but-publishable survey of topology and cosmology. I didn't mind the personal journal-writing bits, though they could have been integrated better (halfway through they seem to begin flowing better; or maybe I just got used to them).
March 20, 2016
When I started this book, I really loved how it was a mashup of the author's personal life and the science she was studying. After a while, I felt almost carsick. Strange reaction, I know. I don't know how else to describe it. I wanted to learn about the science, so badly, and I also wanted to know about her personal life. Somehow, I kept getting a headache when the two were meshed. I am not sure why this happened. After all, I have loved biographies of various scientists-- e.g. Curie, Einstein, Darwin, Newton, Taussig, etc-- where their personal lives are intertwined with their scientific discoveries. But, reading this book, I needed the personal biography to be separate from the science.
I would not want my 3 star rating to discourage others from reading this book. The author explains science really well and she has a really interesting life. She does some delicious namedropping -- Ferreira, Smolin, Randall, etc-- which made the biography bits really interesting. I found myself wanting to know even more about what these scientists think about and talk about when no one else is listening but their small group of friends.
So many wonderful things in this book, and her writing style is witty and unusual. I am certain other people would not have the same averse reaction to it as I did.
I would not want my 3 star rating to discourage others from reading this book. The author explains science really well and she has a really interesting life. She does some delicious namedropping -- Ferreira, Smolin, Randall, etc-- which made the biography bits really interesting. I found myself wanting to know even more about what these scientists think about and talk about when no one else is listening but their small group of friends.
So many wonderful things in this book, and her writing style is witty and unusual. I am certain other people would not have the same averse reaction to it as I did.
December 24, 2010
This is a very strange book!
It's like someone cut pages from a physics text on topology, and glued them into a 13 year old girl's diary.
The stuff about topology is interesting, if a bit speculative.
Still, the one obvious issue the author avoids is that space is very clearly observed to be negatively curved.
It's fun and games to imagine a flat spacetime, but such a thing doesn't exist. Evidence refutes it.
This is really an endeavor in mathematical curiosity, not physics.
The author seems obsessed with the idea of finite spacetime, and her bias is intellectually off-putting.
The "emo" love story slice of life narrative is emotionally off-putting.
I wanted so much to like this book. She gets one extra star for name dropping Smolin, Silk, and Randall.
It's like someone cut pages from a physics text on topology, and glued them into a 13 year old girl's diary.
The stuff about topology is interesting, if a bit speculative.
Still, the one obvious issue the author avoids is that space is very clearly observed to be negatively curved.
It's fun and games to imagine a flat spacetime, but such a thing doesn't exist. Evidence refutes it.
This is really an endeavor in mathematical curiosity, not physics.
The author seems obsessed with the idea of finite spacetime, and her bias is intellectually off-putting.
The "emo" love story slice of life narrative is emotionally off-putting.
I wanted so much to like this book. She gets one extra star for name dropping Smolin, Silk, and Randall.
Read
September 12, 2019good boook !!!hfhfbhrchfhncebwhfcbfcrhefhhfhhchhefcrhhhfhcjrfjrcn4c hmm cm cm d tree,grdhddhhhdhfchdhchfhfjjfjfhgood boook !!!hfhfbhrchfhncebwhfcbfcrhefhhfhhchhefcrhhhfhcjrfjrcn4c hmm cm cm d tree,grdhddhhhdhfchdhchfhfjjfjfhgood boook !!!hfhfbhrchfhncebwhfcbfcrhefhhfhhchhefcrhhhfhcjrfjrcn4c hmm cm cm d tree,grdhddhhhdhfchdhchfhfjjfjfhgood boook !!!hfhfbhrchfhncebwhfcbfcrhefhhfhhchhefcrhhhfhcjrfjrcn4c hmm cm cm d tree,grdhddhhhdhfchdhchfhfjjfjfh
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 22, 2023
This might be the first time I’ve wished that an author would include MORE about their own emotions and life experiences within their memoir/autobiography. Here, she talks a lot about her scientific discoveries and her quests for knowledge as an astrophysicist, and seems to just hint at her internal state or major events in her life. She’ll mention something that happened but just in passing, glossing over moments which must have deeply affected her, as a means of introducing the next educational topic, to get on to the next scientific theory she wants to explain to the reader. The theories are the focus, almost as if her own experiences outside of the theories don’t matter to her. Maybe she’s intentionally keeping the reader at arm’s length for the sake of her own privacy, I don’t know. It just seemed distant and a little disjointed.
December 10, 2020
Levin writes with a certain wistful style of science writing, just as Leonard Susskind occassionally writes with something like anger. Still, she gets her share of the science expounded clearly and orignially. She gives us a brief overview of current and past cosmolody as just about every popular science writer does, and then she gets into her realm - topology. It was news to me, but I enjoyed it. If you belong to Audible, you can download this one free.
April 23, 2017
Extremely readable, surprisingly personal popular physics book, with insight into both theoretical physics and the life of a physicist. Definitely recommend.
October 16, 2022
Mind boggling!! An eye opening if not brain frazzling introduction to have big is the universe! Would only recommend to nerds like me who love science
January 17, 2018
A bit over my head at times, but generally an accessible and absorbing approach to cosmology. The threads about insanity and the personal experience of astrophysics border on profound.
April 23, 2011
How the Universe Got Its Spots is either the most unusual science book I've ever read, or the most science-oriented memoir. I found both aspects delightful. Levin, a no-nonsense, for-real, theoretical cosmologist grapples with, among other things, the shape of the universe, her acknowledgedly irrational preference for it to be finite, and a relationship with a bluegrass musician and instrument maker. There's some remarkably lucid writing about some seriously head-scratching topics like joining the boundaries of three-dimensional spaces (the book's genesis was in a series of letters to Levin's mother explaining her work in lay-person-friendly terms). Levin's get-up-to-speed chapters on physics (from Newton, through Einstein, and into the quantum realm) cover ground that may be familiar to most readers with an interest in the topic, but with a unique and refreshing perspective. Carefully selected biographical details offer insights into the personalities of the figures whose work she describes. She evinces a perhaps slightly morbid interest in the frequency of depression and insanity among mathematicians. (A few moments obliquely imply that this interest may not be completely academic.)
How the Universe Got Its Spots was one of those books filled with paragraphs that begged to be read aloud to my tolerant wife. I'll limit myself here to just one of my favorite passages:
How the Universe Got Its Spots was one of those books filled with paragraphs that begged to be read aloud to my tolerant wife. I'll limit myself here to just one of my favorite passages:
During our month of wandering around the United Kingdom we intended to have fun and failed. Finding our flat was an ordeal and I won't bore you with our tales of misadventure. I can't help but remember the bedsit we found in Brighton as an act of desperation to end our wanderings. Electricity in the bedsit was coin operated. You ran out of coins, you ran out of light. I had always heard of such things in the old world,but in all my travels this was my first coin-op bedsit. I was feeling robust enough to be amused. Warren, on the other hand, sat on the edge of the bed catatonic, staring at the wood chip wallpaper.
December 26, 2010
A nicely put diary of two universe's; Levin's & the cosmic one.
Suggested for readers of all levels. It serves as a great introductory text that provides a summary of the work of the universe, those who study [ like physicists and cosmologists :] and time.
Being in the form of a diary it was a great first-time experience, specially as a science-based text.
Moreover it provides an idea of how a physicist or cosmologist is just another person living a normal [ rarely beyond normal :] & problematic life. The diary takes you on a journey through time & place in Levin's own personal life [ through all the good & bad occasion :]. It proves to you that physicists are not aliens or weirdos, but just human beings like any other in this planet.
Suggested for readers of all levels. It serves as a great introductory text that provides a summary of the work of the universe, those who study [ like physicists and cosmologists :] and time.
Being in the form of a diary it was a great first-time experience, specially as a science-based text.
Moreover it provides an idea of how a physicist or cosmologist is just another person living a normal [ rarely beyond normal :] & problematic life. The diary takes you on a journey through time & place in Levin's own personal life [ through all the good & bad occasion :]. It proves to you that physicists are not aliens or weirdos, but just human beings like any other in this planet.
September 12, 2008
If you hate science, can't wrap your head around quantum physics, and don't care about the size of the universe, this book will change your opinions (or lack thereof) on all of these subjects and subsequently, the way you look at your world. Interspersed with poetic personal narrative and insights into the lives of the world's most amazing scientific minds, the book poses the theory that the universe is actually a finite space. It took me ten minutes to read and re-read and digest each page, and every page blew my mind. Read this book to understand your place in the cosmos and your role in your own tiny life.
December 16, 2016
Great book. Unsent letters to her mom that's an explanation of her field and the costs of depression/gloominess from staring into the abyss, and getting it right.
Very entertaining and lively. Worth the price of having to keep up!
You won't get lost in wonky details; not like science people who lose track of layperson life.
(Although, endearingly, the name Jean-Luc "Goddard" is misspelled, as it slipped by the copy-editor; worlds apart! Tycho Brahe's name is spelled right, of course, ha-ha.)
Very entertaining and lively. Worth the price of having to keep up!
You won't get lost in wonky details; not like science people who lose track of layperson life.
(Although, endearingly, the name Jean-Luc "Goddard" is misspelled, as it slipped by the copy-editor; worlds apart! Tycho Brahe's name is spelled right, of course, ha-ha.)
December 10, 2008
Started as a series of letters to her mom, How the Universe Got Its Spots turned into Janna Levin's diary of her life as a scientist out to determine the size of the cosmos. Levin poetically mixes fascinating scientific details with personal anecdotes. A charming and highly readable account of modern-day physics. Ann, Powells.com
http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio...
http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio...
June 21, 2011
Good meditation on topology, cosmology, infinty, and a life in science. I liked the strange loop. I don't know if there were answers in here. There were a few fantastic quotes/lines, and it was a worthwhile read.
May 30, 2020
A gifted young cosmologist and contemporary scientist writes an intimate look at the universe in a personal and poetic way! "We are the product of this universe and I think it can be argued that the entire cosmic code is imprinted in us. Just as our genes carry the memory of our biological ancestors, our logic carries our cosmological ancestry. We are not just imposing anthropocentric notions on a cosmos independent of us. We are progeny of their ability to understand it is an inheritance.” Not that I understood all what she was saying but her theory of the Universe may be finite was deeply moving and persuasive. Einstein’s simplest insights were profound. The simpler the insight, the more profound the conclusion.. Not that she was simple but still here is how she explains in this book. Why do we long for permanence in a universe defined by constant changes? Infinity is a demented concept because it is not a proper number. No matter how big a number, there is always +1, making it bigger. The number of numbers is infinite; however I could never recite the infinite numbers since I only have a finite lifetime! Galileo, Aristotle and Cantor all were besotted with the notion of infinity at some point; then abandoned its pursuit. We must not dismiss infinity just on the basis of the popular opinion alone. No infinity has ever been observed in nature. Nor is infinity tolerated in a scientific theory. Per Einstein, space is a mutable and evolving field. It has a beginning and the end; a star is born then dies. The universe is growing, expanding, and aging. The gravity, matte and energy are ultimately different expressions of the same thing. The fabric of the universe is just a coherent weave from the same threads that make our body. Then how absurd to believe that universe, space, and time could possibly be infinite when all of us are finite?
May 11, 2019
The book titled How The Universe Got Its Spots is about a cosmologist named Janna Levin. She is trying the question is the universe infinite or is it just really big? She discusses topics that will help her solve the question and she discusses her own life is changing because of her job and the places that she has moved to. Some topics she talks about are Special Relativity, General Relativity, Topology, Quantum Chance, Quantum Choice, Flatlands and Hyperspace. Each concept is discussed in different chapter and some are explained with diagrams. At the end of the book there is a chapter called The Ultimate Prediction in which she explains how these different concepts will change the outcome of our universe and whether or not it is infinite.
My favorite quote from the book is “No matter how big a number you think of, I can add 1 to it and make it that much bigger. The number of numbers is infinite. I could never recite the infinite numbers, since I only have a finite lifetime” (Levin 10)
This is my favorite quote because it really makes you stop and think and wonder. I also, like it because it connects the main question is the universe infinite or is it just really big? And connects it to real life and for a minute you think I life in a forever expanding universe but i live a life that doesn't last forever.
I would not recommend this book. The reason is that even though it's a really good and interesting book that makes you think I would not recommend this to my classmates because it has a lot of complicated language and scientific words that are not easy to understand. But if you are someone who likes challenging books then it's a good book for you just not for everyone in our age group.
My favorite quote from the book is “No matter how big a number you think of, I can add 1 to it and make it that much bigger. The number of numbers is infinite. I could never recite the infinite numbers, since I only have a finite lifetime” (Levin 10)
This is my favorite quote because it really makes you stop and think and wonder. I also, like it because it connects the main question is the universe infinite or is it just really big? And connects it to real life and for a minute you think I life in a forever expanding universe but i live a life that doesn't last forever.
I would not recommend this book. The reason is that even though it's a really good and interesting book that makes you think I would not recommend this to my classmates because it has a lot of complicated language and scientific words that are not easy to understand. But if you are someone who likes challenging books then it's a good book for you just not for everyone in our age group.
May 29, 2019
I should mention that I listened to the audio book version of this with Christine Williams reading. This was the first time I had tried a pop-science book on audio, and was worried it would suffer without diagrams. However, the author is very good at explaining some fairly complicated things with words alone. I had the benefit of having recently been through some of the same material in Lawrence Krauss and Kip Thorn books, and that may have helped me follow along. But, this book does go into some new territory for me. I admit I had to look up Klien bottles. Going into this, I was expecting the focus to be mostly on the topology, but the author gives a pretty comprehensive tour of the history of physics. It was an interesting twist having the information woven in with personal stories and reflections. My only complaint is really with the audio. I never clicked with this narrator's style. The problem may be that I have listened to the real Janna Levin in presentations and interviews, and was aware of the difference in tone and delivery between the two.
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