In search of a Science Communicator who combines high intellect and hard-won knowledge with a desire to share that knowledge and an infectious enthusiasm for both Science and Learning? Want an astrophysicist who "brings Space Science down to Earth?" Then your go-to choice is Dr. Katie Mack and THE END OF EVERYTHING, an extraordinary compendium of Science, wit, humor! Dr. Mack possesses a pervasive enthusiasm which carries throughout and makes us embrace the beauty of Science, whether we are laypersons or not. "Discover" what is known and suspected about our Universe from the beginning, and where it might just go from here.

Excellent book, and Katie was a terrific interview. I brought her back as a panelist in The Planetary Society's recent PlanetFest.

Need a break from humanity? Short a ticket on a shuttle bound for the ISS, Katie Mack’s THE END OF EVERYTHING (ASTROPHYSICALLY SPEAKING) may be your best bet.
☄️
Mack is a career cosmologist and long-time science communicator, and as her bonafides would suggest, she capably leads readers on a tour of the cosmos, from the Big Bang and quark-gluon plasma soup to cosmic expansion and all the possibilities for our eventual, inevitable end.
💫
Mack is funny and fabulous, and her writing makes for a delightful cosmological snack. At a slim 210 pages, I found myself wanting a bit more nitty-gritty; the scope of the material she covers means you’re getting a survey of a survey. But I still learned a lot (vacuum decay sounds like the best way to go; a Theory of Everything STILL doesn’t exist—I was sure the string theorists would’ve cracked that by now??), and as a bonus: so many Easter eggs for scifi fans.
☄️
THE END OF EVERYTHING is for you if you like nonfiction with a spec fic bent, theoretical constructs, math only being touched with a ten-foot pole, and/or lighthearted explorations of the universe’s demise.
✨
To be filed under: existential whimsicality.

This book was pretty fascinating, though not quite as accessible as other science books I've read. While the author does explain everything, sometimes the explanations are a little more than what the average reader will understand. This is understandable since the author is an astrophysicist and the target audience is either people in that field or interested in it, but unless you are in the field or have studied a lot about it, there's a few things you may not get. I don't think it detracts from the book much though, and can still be read by people with little understanding of the subject without too much difficulty.

The different scenarios for how the universe could end are all fascinating and scary. We won't see any of them in our lifetimes, or in many millions of years, but I am interested to know which one of them ends up being the scenario that ends it all. It is a little sad to think that eventually nothing will be here, but I hope the theory that it ends and begins again comes true. There is still so much about the universe we don't know and understand, so who knows; maybe it'll be something else we haven't even thought of that ends it. The fields of astronomy, astrophysics, etc. learn so much every year that our understanding and knowledge is constantly changing. I love reading about it all and can't wait to see what the future brings on these subjects.

A great read for any nerd, I like the casual way of talking around complex mathematical topics.

**I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

A fascinating and wonderful account with cutting-edge scientific information concerning the end of the universe, but it's much more cheerful than it sounds. Filled with delightful asides and humor, as well as mind-boggling data, this is a must-read for any dabbler of cosmic truths and anyone who has ever looked up at the night sky and said "whoa, that's amazing".

Katie Mack loves what she does and it pulses throughout this book. It’s always a joy to read a book by someone so in love with and entranced by what they’re discussing. This book is filled with SCIENCE, but she make it accessible with every day metaphors. While reading this, I kept texting friends these extraordinary facts about the universe and our place in it - like how on September 14th 2015, we all grew a bit taller as the gravitational wave of two black holes meeting washed over us. At the same time, this book does not shy away from what we do NOT know, how theories shift and change, how are perspective continues to bend and warp. So, yes, we learn about The End of Everything, but we also....don’t. The epilogue could’ve been its own book, one I would greedily devour - these incredible scientists, theorists studying the universe - discussing what it is to be human in this landscape so big, we’ll never fully see it. As an aside, I’m not a math person, but after reading this, I desperately want Dr. Mack to write a book about math equations because she makes them sounds so...beautiful. This book filled me with dread, but I tend to fill myself with optimism: this moment now, it’s so incredibly small. The earth could be wiped out in so many ways, distant or not - but it matters, what we do, how we shift through this now. It may not be remembered in a cosmic history, but it matters to our neighbors and our communities. It’s not about us, but it is all at once. So, if you’re in the US, remember to vote for progressive candidates, abolish the police, and continuing fighting for racial justice.

It’s a reality of life that nothing lasts forever. All things are transient. Everything that begins must eventually end.

And I do mean EVERYTHING.

Even the universe itself will eventually come to an end. Entire fields of study are devoted to beginnings and endings on a cosmic scale, with brilliant scientists spending their professional lives staring out into the universe and deep into the atom in an effort to understand not just how everything works, but how it might eventually stop working.

Astrophysicist Katie Mack’s new book “The End of Everything: (Astrophysically Speaking)” is a smart, surprisingly funny look at some of the ways that cosmologists believe the universe could potentially end. Don’t worry – it probably isn’t taking place anytime soon. Most of these endings won’t happen tomorrow. Probably.

It’s an accessible and engaging work of pop science, one that finds a way to strike a balance between the intricate physics and mathematics that go into these explorations and an easy narrative tonality that allows even those without PhDs to wrap their heads around these big-by-definition ideas. Consider this a crash course in cosmic eschatology, a sort of End Of It All 101. It is informative and entertaining in the way that only the very best science writing can be.

“The End of Everything” begins with, well … the beginning. Mack gives us an introduction to the cosmos, a quick breakdown of the music of the spheres. She then walks the reader through the Big Bang up until, well … now, along with the various evolutions of that theory over the years since its inception. It’s an easy-to-understand primer on the origins of the universe that provides welcome context to what follows.

Namely – the end.

Mack has brought together five different theories on how the end of the universe might come about. Each of these theories receives its own chapter, packed with scientific engagement and smoothed-out explanations of wildly complicated scientific and mathematical concepts. The chapters derive their titles from the ending that they explore – “Big Crunch,” “Heat Death,” “Big Rip,” “Vacuum Decay” and “Bounce” – and go into their respective subjects before things close out with the aptly-titled “Future of the Future.” All of this presented with an informed enthusiasm (and unapologetically dorky humor) that is utterly infectious

That’s the thing – Mack is so unwaveringly passionate about her subject that the reader can’t help but be pulled in by the sheer gravity of her enthusiasm. She’s long had a reputation as someone, whether it is in her longform writing for assorted science-driven publications or her presence on Twitter (for real – her handle is @AstroKatie and she is an outstanding follow), who is able to make the nuances and complexities of her discipline approachable for the layperson. She absolutely accomplishes that here.

It might seem like an odd time to engage with a book about the end of the universe, considering *waves hands around* all this, but the truth is that there’s an odd sense of comfort that comes with learning about it. In a world that can feel like it is crumbling around you, there’s something soothing in reading a book that reminds you that while the capital-E End is coming, it probably won’t be for a while – a few billion years at least.

For what it’s worth, my favorite (well, “favorite”) potential ending is vacuum decay. I had a tiny bit of baseline familiarity with most of these concepts, thanks to a brief dalliance with pop physics back in the day, but vacuum decay was largely a new one on me. I’m not going to go into detail, but it’s worth mentioning that this is the one with the best (albeit still infinitesimally small) chance of happening … whenever.

All of this is elevated by the fact that Mack is genuinely funny – even her groaners (of which there are a few) will elicit a chuckle, reluctant though it might be. She has found ways to make room for that humor even as she’s offering up real insight into complicated physical and mathematical phenomena, doing so in such a way as to ensure that it all fits together without ever feeling forced. Cosmology and astrophysics, yes, but also stuff like quantum mechanics and string theory and a whole assortment of other areas of high-level thought. Anyone who has ever read this kind of mainstream academic nonfiction knows just how hard that is to pull off, yet Mack manages it with seeming ease.

(Note: You might be someone who skips the footnotes/endnotes. Don’t do that here – your understanding and enjoyment of the book will only be enhanced by reading them.)

“The End of Everything” is science writing for the masses in the best possible way, a book that simplifies some staggeringly complex ideas without ever condescending to its audience. Its casual tone and charming good humor allow us to fully engage with the intricacies – both large and small – of this fascinating subject. Ironically enough, you’ll be sad to reach the end of “The End of Everything.”

Easy to read and understand for the non-physicists among us, without being condescending, which can be difficult to achieve in popular science writing! A great read for those of us who need a reminder, when the world feels like it's falling apart, that our existential crises are like a hiccup to the existential identity of the universe.

"At some point, in a cosmic sense, it will not have mattered that we ever lived. The universe will, more likely than not, fade into a cold, dark, empty cosmos, and all that we’ve done will be utterly forgotten."

It took me forever to get through this book. To be fair, I am not good at physics and even though I've read a few Brian Greene books, I am far far away from the amount of knowledge it would help to have before reading this book.

That didn't stop me from working hard to make my way through it. It's written in common, easy language and tries to add both some perspective and levity but at the end of the day, this is a book about astrophysics and there's no way that's not going to be dense (unless you simplify it so much that it's pointless.

Katie Mack manages to make it both readable and keeps the physics serious, real, and interesting.

If physics is your thing or you're just fascinated like I am, this is the book for you.

with gratitude to netgalley and Scribner for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Pandemic got you down? How bout universe-ending problems instead? ✨ Book Review The End of Everything by Katie Mack
(#gifted @netgalley @scribnerbooks)

To quote Mack herself: “Someone asked me today who would want to read a book about physics and I mean I get that but also if I tell you "the universe is going to end" I think it would be very odd to not immediately ask "how" and "when" and "will it hurt"”

🙋🏻‍♀️ Me. I had all those questions. And what Mack delivers with this volume is a (relatively) easily digestible look at the history and future of the universe, and where new science could leads us in terms of answers — with healthy doses of good humor and existential dread to go along with it🌌

Mack describes one of the first instances she was blindsided thinking about not just the end of the world, but the universe itself: “No assurance existed to tell us that a rapid, unsurviable rending of space couldn’t start right then, in the living room, while we ate cookies and drank tea.” Despite the fruitlessness of the effort to figure it out before it happens, she and cosmologists and physicists like her venture on🔭

This volume details the five main ways the universe is believed to eventually end, lays out the basics of the math and evidence behind them, and then goes into what future data and theories could tell us eventually 🔍

Despite having such an unknown fate, reading about “the end times” was such a comforting distraction from the very real, very relevant problems of the “now.” Tour guide Mack expertly shows her readers through the chaos, from The Big Crunch to the Big Rip and everything in between - with quips about bubbles of doom and here be dragons along the way. She strikes a great balance between explaining things so that most readers could understand, not getting bogged down in the nitty-gritty details and without losing the space nerd joy that comes with talking about these far flung ideas 💡

So was it a “joy” to read about the end of everything. Quite

P.s. my bets are on The Big Rip. My boyfriend’s holding out hope for a multidimensional bounce. How would you want the universe to end?

As someone who has been voraciously reading and re-reading every popular science article regarding astronomy I could get my hands on since the mid-90s, this book was obviously going to be of interest to me. The study of cosmology has been probing the past, trying to figure out the mysteries of the big bang, and the evolution of the stars and galalaxies we see today. Over the last three decades scientists have figured out that in addition to normal everyday matter that you, I, and our planet are made of, the universe also consists of 5x as much invisible dark matter, and 14x of something called dark energy. All of this has been derived from studying increasingly far away objects in the universe, some are so far away that the light they emitted is now getting to us about 13 billion years later, meaning that with the right telescope you can actually look at and study the dawn of the cosmos, which is exactly what was done to come to all of the above conclusions.

Ok, so enough exposition. Let's get to the premise of the book. The idea is that if we think we know all of these things about the universe from it's start - up until now, then we should be able to wind the clock forward and use our understanding of physics to predict what will happen in the future. Will the universe just go on forever, or will everything eventually come to an end? If you ever wondered about that, and I bet you have, this book has some answers for you!

Katie Mack does a great job compiling the current most likely endings of the universe given the available data and prevailing theories of the day. This is to say that we should all be looking for a second edition in the next decade or two. The different ways the universe might come to an end are as follows:
+The heat death: which despite the sound of it is actually extremely cold, more like the death of heat.
+The big rip: Wherein everything is torn apart, including star systems, planets, and even molecules and atoms.
+The big crunch: This one is really epic, all of the light that has ever been emitted throughout the entire history of the universe gets compressed, concentrated, shifted to a higher energy level, and burns everything with the power of a gagillion suns. In this scenario, the stars will burn from the outside in.
+vacuum decay: The painless one, and my preferred method if the universe had to end tomorrow and I was there for it.
+bouncing universe: I already forget what this one is actually called, but this is the one with other dimension where a parallel universe collides with our own periodically in a bouncing fashion. Probably my least favorite of the bunch.

Katie additionally goes into the history of each theory, including giving credit to the scientists involved. This is probably where I learned the most from this book. One story that stuck out to me was the story of Henrietta Swan Leavitt's discovery of the brightness-periodicity relationship of Cepheid variables. This is a crucial discovery which has served as a foundation for our distance measurement scales to probe the large scale structure of the universe, ans is not something we covered in any of my Astronomy classes in high school or University. I think it's important to go back and give people their due that may have been overlooked or under-recognized in their own lifetime.

The conversation from 2018's Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray is also continued with a discussion on whether funding for a larger collider is really warranted. It's hard to pin down exactly where Katie comes down in this debate, she is certainly more generous to the collider folks than Sabine Hossenfelder was.

While Katie does a good job of covering all the basics in order to help you understand the book, I'm coming at it as a physicist and definitely have a much easier time understanding everything. The cosmology class in college where we studied the equation of state of the universe certainly helps as well. That being said this book should be accessible to anyone with an interest in STEM and who has read a few other popular astronomy/cosmology books. Another thing to note is that while covering the basics I was not bored to death reading about things I already knew, and found myself engaged and interested. It's always nice to see information presented in a new way and I believe that it is important to continually strive to find new and better ways to present physics to the general public.

This book is 5/5 I found out more about the end of the universe than I knew I wanted to know.

Contemplating Cosmic Finality

Katie Mack’s The End of Everything doesn’t depress.

By Kenneth Silber

Katie Mack, an astrophysicist at North Carolina State University and high-profile social-media science communicator, has written a book that feels oddly suitable for 2020, even though its subject is as distant from current events as can be. The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking), published by Scribner, is about scenarios presented by science for the universe’s ultimate fate, with names such as Heat Death, Big Crunch, Big Rip, and Vacuum Decay.

This litany of cosmic cataclysms presents an amusing diversion from current earthly troubles, and also invokes thought about what’s worth thinking about. In a recent interview at the online magazine Quanta, Mack was asked about studying the universe “even at a time when there are more urgent problems that require the attention of scientists.” Her answer reasonably noted that not all scientists can make their work relevant to a pandemic; and that scientific curiosity and other human aspirations can’t all be shut down because of crises.

The universe as we know it changed in 1998. Two competing groups of scientists had been collecting data on distant supernovae in an effort to pinpoint the rate of the slowdown of the universe’s expansion, a reduction expected in then-standard cosmology. Instead, the data showed the expansion was accelerating. That meant some little-understood factor was at work, which would become known as “dark energy.” It also indicated the far future would be bleak: the galaxies dispersing in a Heat Death or Big Chill that would end anyone or anything.

Physicist Freeman Dyson wrote a paper in 1979 sketching out how intelligent beings could survive indefinitely in an expanding, cooling universe, through adaptations such as repeated hibernations. An accelerating expansion, however, made even this survival strategy untenable. The 1998 discovery also meant the possibility of a Big Crunch—in which the expansion reverses into a contraction that ultimately ends the cosmos—could now essentially be dismissed.

A Heat Death seems to condemn the universe to an eternity of cold nothingness. However, Mack notes, it also raises some strange possibilities. One is that, given unlimited time to occur, there might be a random fluctuation that returns the universe to a previous state. This could mean that Nietzsche’s “eternal return” of events that have already happened is real. Alternatively, since a fluctuation that reproduces a small part of the universe is more likely than one that reproduces a larger one, there may exist “Boltzmann brains,” entities that incorrectly perceive an ordered universe around them when in fact they float in chaos.

It’s also possible there won’t be a Heat Death, because a different universe-ending scenario occurs first. One would be a Big Rip, which would transpire if the relationship between dark energy’s density and pressure is even slightly different from the cosmological constant that physicists have assumed. In this scenario, celestial objects would come apart, the Earth would explode, and finally the fabric of space would disintegrate. However, calculations indicate this scenario can’t happen until at least 188 billion years from now.

By contrast, Vacuum Decay is a cosmos-destroying scenario that’s not necessarily relegated to the distant future. In this picture, the Higgs energy field that pervades all space turns out less stable than hoped, such that what we regard as vacuum is in fact “false vacuum.” In that case, a disruption anywhere in the universe could generate an expansive bubble of true vacuum, or as Mack puts it “a quantum bubble of death.” This could occur anytime.

What might cause a Vacuum Decay event? In the past couple of decades, there have been claims that particle accelerator experiments could provide the disruptive trigger. Physicists have dismissed such concerns on the grounds that natural phenomena—cosmic rays hitting the moon, for example—generate extremely high energies without causing vacuum instability. Of course, some even-higher energy produced naturally or artificially might someday do the trick.

This brings up a funny memory. Two decades ago, I was working at Lou Dobbs’ Internet start-up Space.com when we ran a news story reporting physicists’ skepticism about concerns that a collider at the Brookhaven Lab on Long Island posed a vacuum risk. The wiseacre headline was something like “Brookhaven Probably Won’t Destroy Universe.” Lou was incensed, issuing red-faced harangues to staffers. He didn’t want the website downplaying a potentially high-traffic controversy. It was an early sign that Dobbs was not the avuncular guy familiar from television.

While the above scenarios put an emphasis on doom, Mack presents one more, Bounce, that offers a degree of cosmic hope. This involves a new universe emerging from the old. Some cosmological models, including ones called “ekpyrotic,” from the Greek for “conflagration,” provide such cyclic potential; for instance, cosmologists Anna Ijjas and Paul Steinhardt propose to explain features of the early universe as arising from a small patch of a prior universe. Conceivably, gravitational waves carry information from one universe to the next.

The End of Everything is a thought-provoking, entertaining and unexpectedly cheering book.

—Kenneth Silber is author of In DeWitt’s Footsteps: Seeing History on the Erie Canal and is on Twitter: @kennethsilber

This is a short book, but a dense read. Some concepts went way over my head but, over all, the author does a great job of making most of the content understandable for those of us not conversant in astrophysics. She discusses several theories about the end of the universe. If this is something that doesn't normally worry you, think again, since apparently some theories say that it could happen, not billions of years in the future, but at any moment. Even now. Dr. Mack also includes an easy to follow overview of the history of, well, everything. The tone is straightforward and full of humor. When a longer explanation is required - one that usually takes people with high iQs years of training to even begin to grasp - she does a good job of giving readers the basics to at least get a general idea of the subject. Interesting.
I chose to read this book and all opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased. Thank you, NetGalley/ Scribner!

I had not heard of Katie Mack before getting this book and, wow, was I missing out! I'm certainly no astrophysicist but The End of everything was perfectly understandable. The author explains several ways in which the universe will end and she makes it make sense!

If, like me, you are curious about the end of the universe and what could happen, get this book! It's amazing!

"There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.

There is another theory which states that this has already happened.

― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking) by Katie Mack is a look at the end of the Universe as well as its history. Mack is a theoretical cosmologist and Assistant Professor at North Carolina State University. Her research investigates dark matter, vacuum decay, and the epoch of reionization.

Popular science books are a growing market. In the early 1980s, I read Taking the Quantum Leap: The New Physics for Nonscientists by Fred Allan Wolf. It was the first of its kind for me -- Hard science without the math. Not that I had anything against math, but I wanted to read for pleasure as well as to learn. Math provides the proof for the writing, but if the reader is willing to trust that the author did all the math, it's all good. It's much the same way one can operate, understand, and repair a gasoline engine without knowing all the engineering mathematics that had gone into its creation. There are plenty of books on quantum mechanics, relativity, and cosmology for those interested in science but without the mathematical background. 

With all the science books out there, why choose Mack's book? Mack has something in her style that is unique. Some writers come off as arrogant and might even be the type of person who would kill off a planet. Others are excellent, like Michio Kaku. Others write a book hoping to popularize their theory. I have not read a more inviting scientist than Mack since Sagan. She has that manner of talking to an old friend. It encourages to reader to continue. She also has a sense of humor and probably the most enjoyable footnotes I have ever read. 

Mack begins with the history of the Universe from the Big Bang until now and then moves to the death scenarios of the Universe in a very understandable manner. The death of the Universe can happen in a few ways. Gravity can pull it back into a singularity and possibly bounce back. If gravity does not contract the Universe, it can end by Heat Death, basically running out of energy. These two theories have been around for quite some time in one form or another. Two other theories are presented -- Vacuum Decay and the Big Rip. All theories are discussed in an understandable manner. The readers need not fear words like quantum mechanics and relativity. Although not in their complete mathematical form, they are described in a way a layperson can understand and not so oversimplified to turn off someone with some college courses in science.

Mack not only makes cosmology and physics understandable she makes it inviting. There is an enthusiasm for sharing knowledge that is missing in many other books on similar subjects. That enthusiasm is contagious and welcoming. She will give the reader an understanding of the big picture of cosmology as well as a few Douglas Adams references. Extremely well done. 

Available August 4, 2020

In case these times weren’t providing enough anxiety, astrophysicist Katie Mack has arrived on the scene with something else for you to worry about — the end of the universe. More precisely, in The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking), Mack explores five ways the universe might die: The Big Crunch, Heath Death, The Big Rip, Vacuum Decay, and a Bounce. Luckily, most won’t be coming along for some billions of years, so you can probably still get in everything you’ve been planning on — cleaning out the garage, binging that TV show, learning to make cocktails, etc. (those of us with TBR shelves though are out of luck — billions of years just won’t cut it).

Mack opens with a tour of our current understanding of the universe’s lifetime, from the Big Bang almost 14 billion years ago up to now. Then each apocalyptic scenario gets its own chapter detailing the science behind the theory and presenting the experimental and observational evidence for or against the theory. Given that we’re in the realm here of theoretical physics/cosmology, none of these scenarios can be absolutely ruled out, leaving Mack to present the evidence as leading to a “more” or “less” likely result. She also explains how our advancing technology might be able to prove or disprove some of the theories in the relatively near future (some may be well beyond out experimental capabilities for generations if not forever).

The opening tour of the universe’s birth and development to its current stage is nicely concise and wonderfully lucid, covering topics such as the beginning singularity, the brief time all four forces were a single force, cosmic inflation, the birth of matter starting with quarks and then building up into protons and neutrons and then elements like helium and lithium and eventually up the large structures like suns and galaxies.

The first end of the universe section goes into more detail on the expansion of the galaxy and what would happen if that expansion reverses (and why that might occur) ending us all in a “Big Crunch.” The next two section deal more closely with dark energy and entropy and how they might lead to a relatively quiet Heat Death (as Mack puts it, the “slow fade to black”) or a much more violent Big Rip, where “our planet explodes . . . molecules crack open . . . black holes are eviscerated. And at the final instant, the fabric of space itself is ripped apart.” In the chapter on Vacuum Decay, Mack explains the recent discovery of the Higgs Boson and the Higgs field that underlies the theory and how theory also says that it carries with it the potential to create a “bubble of true vacuum [with] a drastically different kind of space . . . that could incinerate everything it touches . . . total and complete dissociation.” In one of the quirkier aspects Mack presents in the book, nothing in the theory prevents this from already having happened, so as far as we know this Bubble of Certain Annihilation!! (as Marvel comics might put it) is already slowly heading our way.

Continuing in her exploration of very recent discoveries, gravitational waves (just observed in the past two years) are an important player in the “Big Bounce” theory, whereby we live in one of multiple “branes” that slowly have been drifting apart but will eventually come together again to unleash another Big Bang (unfortunately wiping us out in the process).

The science throughout is explained clearly in easy to follow fashion, with a good number of helpful illustrations. Mack handles the science deftly whether she’s zooming in or taking a broad view, and she is careful to not overhype discoveries or present theories as overly definitive. One of my favorite moments is when she writes:

the original version of inflation is widely considered to be a stroke of genius in spite of being in the end a total failure. It didn’t work at all, and was totally revamped by other physicists within about a year. What its originators did exactly right was to propose a general class of solutions that became the spark of a firestorm of creative ways to finally make the Big Bang work.

This is a view of science too often lacking in news accounts. How science builds more on “failure” than success (and thus failure is never really failure), how science doesn’t worry about getting things “right” because being “wrong” is just a step in the process, and how science rarely is a single person’s “discovery” but is a much more collaborative effort.

Personally, I wanted a bit more detail and more complex science, but while I’m not a scientist I read a lot in various fields, so someone coming to this as a first or early dip into popular science will probably find this at the perfect level. Also, the footnotes offer a little additional detail for those looking for more, as well as some lighter or more digressive bits. With regard to tone and style, Mack is engaging throughout, offering just the right amount of personal experience and opinion as well as a decent amount of soft humor that neither distracts nor detracts from the reading experience. And while forays into the lyrical are rare, they’re effective enough that Mack should consider doing more such in her next book. Which I’ll be happy to pick up based on The End of Everything.

AUTHOR

Dr. Katherine (Katie) Mack is a theoretical astrophysicist. Find out more about her on her webpage here. You can follow Dr. Mack on Twitter here and Facebook here.

WHO IS THE TARGET AUDIENCE?

This book will intrigue and enlighten anyone who might be interested in the birth and different possible deaths of our universe.

SYNOPSIS

The End of Everything: (Astrophysically Speaking) is an extremely well written exploration of five possible endings to the universe as we know it. She puts theory and physics into terms that are easy for anyone to understand. The graphs and pictures enhance that understanding and the footnotes are invaluable.

The End of Everything starts at the beginning; the “Big Bang to Now.” This is where Dr Mack explains the origins of our universe as we know it today. She follows up the beginning with chapters covering each the five possible ends:

Big Crunch
Heat Death
Big Rip
Vacuum Decay
Bounce
Intermixed within these chapters are discussions on a variety of scientific principles. She clearly explains how each field of study interrelates with the others. She avoids using in depth mathematical equations but rather uses examples to explain the theories. These examples make the subject matter easy to understand for anyone not in the scientific field. I particularly appreciated the example of gravity by throwing a baseball so hard that it escapes the earths pull and continues on out into space forever.

Other than the fact that the universe will someday end; one of the most mind-blowing elements of her book is that there may be things beyond the visible horizon we will never know about. According to current scientific study, the universe is still expanding. No matter how far we see into space, we will never be able to see past 13.8 billion light years. The time that it takes for light to travel from the start of the universe to earth. In a constantly expanding universe, this means there may be a lot more out there that we will never know about. Unless we can travel in any direction fast enough to meet the light from that distant object, we will never see it. I wonder what lies out there beyond the horizon.

CONCLUSION

The End of Everything: (Astrophysically Speaking) is a tremendously fascinating book. The look into our universe from its birth to its possible deaths is exciting and mind-blowing. The physics, mathematics and scientific study involved to inspire the theories and experiments are just, well, astronomical.

Dr. Mack does an exceptional job relating the information in laymen’s terms, so everyone can understand the principles involved. She relates the subject humorously and at the same time maintains intrigue. She includes numerous footnotes, graphs and depictions in each chapter to further explain the concepts involved.

I heartily recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in cosmology, or who just wants to understand more about our place in the universe.

⭐⭐⭐⭐
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank Dr. Katie Mack, NetGalley, and Scribner for affording me the opportunity to review The End of Everything: (Astrophysically Speaking).

Do you, like me, love footnotes?

Then buckle up, friendo, because this is the book for you.

Katie Mack is world-renowned in some circles, which is to say, the best circles, for her Twitter account, where she is hilarious, sensitive, and able to explain the most complicated physics concepts not just so that even the layest of laypeople can understand them, but so that those same people can have a good laugh, too. <i>The End of Everything</i> is all that and more.

I've got a big, big soft spot for eschatology, so I started this book with high, high hopes, and not for a single moment did Mack let me down. She takes the reader on a tour of all the exciting, horrifying, and strangely beautiful ways that all this - and I do mean <i>all</i> this - might eventually come to an end. From the heat death of the universe to the big rip, Mack goes into stirring and vivid details about the ways in which we might eventually say goodbye to everything* - and maybe even say hello again.

*We, of course, won't be saying anything - we'll have been swallowed up by the sun long before then.**

**Assuming no bubbles come and swallow us up.

I loved this book. I've been following Katie Mack on Twitter for quite some time and love her posts about science and life. This book is a great example of science communication at its best.