杏吧原创

鈥淧HYSICS is wild.鈥� Katie Mack repeats this on at least two occasions in The End of Everything. It is a mantra for her book, which guides readers on a tour of some of the wildest areas of physics and how they will someday contribute to the end of the universe.

For a book on a seemingly grim subject, it made me chuckle on many occasions, particularly the footnotes, which read like a director making snarky asides about her own film. The main text is more like an animated discussion with your favourite quirky and brilliant professor. Its references range from William Shakespeare and Nicolaus Copernicus to Friedrich Nietzsche and modern science fiction.

What stands out most is Mack鈥檚 pure enjoyment of physics, and it is contagious. She describes primordial black holes as 鈥渁wfully cute in a terrifying theoretical kind of way鈥�, antimatter as 鈥渕atter鈥檚 annihilation-happy evil twin鈥�, grand unified theories as 鈥渁ll-in-one particle physics part[ies]鈥� and the universe as 鈥渇rickin鈥� weird鈥�. All of these are true, and Mack entertainingly explains why.

The frame for Mack鈥檚 rollicking tour through the nooks and crannies of physics is an exploration of the ways our universe might end, from the relatively mundane (everything just keeps getting further apart forever) to the mildly terrifying (a bubble of death that expands at the speed of light until it devours everything without warning).

We don鈥檛 know for sure which of these dooms will occur because some of the biggest questions in the universe, such as the nature of dark matter and dark energy, remain unanswered.

Mack acknowledges that many of these concepts are hard to explain without heavy use of mathematics, and then goes on to explain them expertly with no equations whatsoever.

鈥淭he book is like an animated discussion with your favourite quirky and brilliant professor鈥�

As I spend a lot of my time reading about cosmology and speaking to cosmologists about these issues, I didn鈥檛 expect to learn too many new facts and concepts. I was pleasantly surprised. I learned a great deal, including how white dwarf stars work, how extra dimensions might affect our own universe and the ominous nature of the big crunch, in which the entire universe contracts and returns to its beginning state.

Mack鈥檚 explanations range from the colossal (galaxies colliding) to the seemingly humdrum (why air conditioners are bad for the environment), and she seems to have unending curiosity and enthusiasm for all of it.

Like any physics book, there are areas that are somewhat confusing 鈥� Mack could no more get me to understand 鈥渓arge鈥� or 鈥渟mall鈥� extra dimensions than the cosmologist I once asked to confirm that a small extra dimension wasn鈥檛 鈥渟mall like a jelly bean鈥�. But overall, the clarity was refreshing, even when the state of physics theory on the matter is somewhere between 鈥渨e are still trying to understand鈥� and 鈥渨e will probably never know鈥�.

Unlike any other astrophysicist or cosmologist I have asked, she manages to coherently explain the big rip, in which dark energy tears asunder everything from clusters of galaxies down to single atoms, without using the word 鈥渧irialised鈥� (physics jargon that basically means 鈥済ravitationally bound and stable鈥�).

It is also refreshing, the state of the world being what it is right now, to read about something larger.

Every one of the scenarios in the book is only likely to take place billions of years in the future, long after Earth has been vapourised in the expanding sun.

As the final chapter acknowledges, there are infinite ways to feel about the end of the universe, and you may feel differently about different sorts of end. No matter how hard things are here on Earth right now, at least the universe hasn鈥檛 become so hot that even stars 鈥渃atch fire鈥�.

What all the endings have in common is to highlight the vastness of the universe, and the banality of our everyday existence.

If you need a moment to be distracted from everyday life and journey to the deep cosmic future, I highly recommend The End of Everything.

In it, Mack seems unable to help describing complex physics concepts as 鈥渇un鈥� and 鈥渃ool鈥�. She is right, and her book is also fun and cool.

(*When you buy through links on this page we may earn a small commission, but this plays no role in what we review or our opinion of it.)