Lee Smolin is not afraid to think big--really, really big. His theory of cosmic evolution by the natural selection of black-hole universes makes what we can experience into an infinitesimal, yet crucial, part of an ever-larger whole. Smolin says, "the new view of the universe is light, in all its senses, because what Darwin has given us, and what we may aspire to generalize to the cosmos as a whole, is a way of thinking about the world which is scientific and mechanistic, but in which the occurrence of novelty--indeed, the perpetual birth of novelty--can be understood." Other scientists are, to say the least, divided on whether Smolin has much chance of being right, but they agree with Paul Davies that he is "a deep and original thinker."


The New York Times Book Review, George Johnson
It's great fun to see the implications of this fantastic idea laid out by so original a thinker. But in the end I wasn't convinced that his is a verifiable scientific theory ... I was far more impressed with the insightful account Smolin gives of the ambitious effort of physicists to come up with a theory of what they call quantum cosmology...


From Kirkus Reviews
Physics has long assumed that the laws of nature are immutable; here's a cosmological theory that challenges even that common-sense notion. The great problem facing physics at the end of the 20th century remains the integration of relativity and quantum theory. While both have scored impressive triumphs in their spheres of concern, the two operate at different poles of the physical universe: Relativity concerns itself with large objects and great distances, whereas quantum theory is at home with subatomic particles. And while quantum theory has brilliantly accounted for three of the four major forces in the universe, it has failed to make heads or tails of gravity--the one force that affects all the particles in the universe, no matter what the distance between them. A further difficulty, from Smolin's point of view, is that the ratios of the masses of the known particles do not fall into any coherent pattern, and small changes in those parameters would lead to a universe radically different from ours. So why is our universe as we see it? Why, for that matter, do we exist at all? Smolin (Physics/Penn. State Univ.) suggests that an evolutionary principle has been at work, that the Big Bang was only the most recent in a series of creations, and that the laws of physics can vary (although only a tiny bit) with each new bang. Universes that tend to create many stars (and thus many black holes, as those stars die) can give birth to more descendants than those with a paucity of stars. Thus the universe evolves according to a principle similar to natural selection. Much of the material is fascinating, and Smolin gives the reader a thorough tour of the latest in cosmological speculation. The early chapters are slow going, but once his argument builds up momentum, Smolin is a thought-provoking theorist. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Book News, Inc.
Offers a new theory of the universe, drawing on recent developments in cosmology, quantum theory, relativity, and string theory. Asserts that the underlying structure of the universe is to be found in the logic of evolution and that the laws of nature that we observe may be in part the result of a process of natural selection which took place before the big bang. Includes a glossary. For general readers. -- Copyright © 1999 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR All rights reserved


Book Description
Lee Smolin offers a new theory of the universe that is at once elegant, comprehensive, and radically different from anything proposed before. Smolin posits that a process of self organization like that of biological evolution shapes the universe, as it develops and eventually reproduces through black holes, each of which may result in a new big bang and a new universe. Natural selection may guide the appearance of the laws of physics, favoring those universes which best reproduce. The result would be a cosmology according to which life is a natural consequence of the fundamental principles on which the universe has been built, and a science that would give us a picture of the universe in which, as the author writes, "the occurrence of novelty, indeed the perpetual birth of novelty, can be understood." Smolin is one of the leading cosmologists at work today, and he writes with an expertise and force of argument that will command attention throughout the world of physics. But it is the humanity and sharp clarity of his prose that offers access for the layperson to the mind bending space at the forefront of today's physics.

ANNOTATION

Cosmologist Lee Smolin offers a startling new theory of the universe that is at once elegant, comprehensive, and radically different from anything proposed before, arguing that the laws of nature may be subject themselves to natural selection. "A radically new view of the cosmos and our place within it."--Paul Davies. 416 pp. 25,000 print.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Cosmologist Lee Smolin offers a startling new theory of the universe that is at once elegant, comprehensive, and radically different from anything proposed before. In The Life of the Cosmos, Smolin cuts the Gordian knot of cosmology with a simple, powerful idea: "The underlying structure of our world," he writes, "is to be found in the logic of evolution." Today's physicists have overturned Newton's view of the universe, yet they continue to cling to an understanding of reality not unlike Newton's own - as a clock, an intricate mechanism, governed by laws which are mathematical and eternally true. Smolin argues that the laws of nature we observe may be in part the result of a process of natural selection which took place before the big bang. Smolin's ideas are based on recent developments in cosmology, quantum theory, relativity and string theory, yet they offer, at the same time, an unprecedented view of how these developments may fit together to form a new theory of cosmology. From this perspective, the lines between the simple and the complex, the fundamental and the emergent, and even between the biological and the physical are redrawn. The result is a framework that illuminates many intractable problems, from the paradoxes of quantum theory and the nature of space and time to the problem of constructing a final theory of physics. As he argues for this new view, Smolin introduces the reader to recent developments in a wide range of fields, from string theory and quantum gravity to evolutionary theory the structure of galaxies. He examines the philosophical roots of controversies in the foundations of physics, and shows how they may be transformed as science moves toward understanding the universe as an interrelated, self-constructed entity, within which life and complexity have a natural place, and in which "the occurrence of novelty, indeed the perpetual birth of novelty, can be understood."

FROM THE CRITICS

Philadelphia Enquirer

If you have a willingness to exercise your mind by entertaining a more interdisciplinary view of the universe as a grand evolutionary system, then Life of the Cosmos is the kind of book you will want to read -- one that describes our universe as a more holistic, interrelated ecosystem of galaxies, stars, planets and life.

Kirkus Reviews

Physics has long assumed that the laws of nature are immutable; here's a cosmological theory that challenges even that common-sense notion.

The great problem facing physics at the end of the 20th century remains the integration of relativity and quantum theory. While both have scored impressive triumphs in their spheres of concern, the two operate at different poles of the physical universe: Relativity concerns itself with large objects and great distances, whereas quantum theory is at home with subatomic particles. And while quantum theory has brilliantly accounted for three of the four major forces in the universe, it has failed to make heads or tails of gravity—the one force that affects all the particles in the universe, no matter what the distance between them. A further difficulty, from Smolin's point of view, is that the ratios of the masses of the known particles do not fall into any coherent pattern, and small changes in those parameters would lead to a universe radically different from ours. So why is our universe as we see it? Why, for that matter, do we exist at all? Smolin (Physics/Penn. State Univ.) suggests that an evolutionary principle has been at work, that the Big Bang was only the most recent in a series of creations, and that the laws of physics can vary (although only a tiny bit) with each new bang. Universes that tend to create many stars (and thus many black holes, as those stars die) can give birth to more descendants than those with a paucity of stars. Thus the universe evolves according to a principle similar to natural selection.

Much of the material is fascinating, and Smolin gives the reader a thorough tour of the latest in cosmological speculation. The early chapters are slow going, but once his argument builds up momentum, Smolin is a thought-provoking theorist.