J. Richard Gott

The audiobook is frustrating because it is quite hard at times to follow the algebra amd you don’t get any of the pretty postures the book has... but beyond that this is a great piece.

Beyond Neil’s funny quips about the eventual potential fish found on the moon Europa being called europeans, the book offers two key jewels:
- a derivation of E = mc^2 that is the most intuitive I have ever read
- an application of the Copernican Principle to everyday estimation of how long things will last

Many other perspective views that tie the universe up into a pretty weird object, but walking through the steps that took us there.

Only big critique is that Gott does not really describe his strongest critics in the business of universes, he drifts over how contested many string theory approaches have been.

Great read nevertheless...… (mere)

Given that I am a layperson and my calculus is far behind me, I still believe that I was conceptually able to grasp at least a quarter of the matter in the book, the rest remaining "dark matter" for me, existent, imaginable but not yet graspable. The authors do a great job of explication, but this still means that thus is a challenging book. I do feel that my understanding of the process behind E=mc2 for instance rose to a higher level as a result of spending quality time with these 3 intelligent and witty men.… (mere)