Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution Paperback – October 17, 2005

Being an astrophysics klutz I have a real problem assimilating the vastness of the Universe, the hundred billion galaxies and the tiny objects-the quarks, positrons, bosons, nuons, neutrinos This highly entertaining volume, a cheerful paean to the Universe, clued me in a bit but I still have trouble with things like Dark Matter. However, "Origins" is a delight and if you are mathematically challenged like me don't hesitate to get the book, you'll love it, trust me."The Biggest story ever told" is, of course, the Big Bang. I was amused to learn that the moniker "Big Bang" was a sarcastic name applied by an astronomer named Fred Hoyle who didn't believe in it, and the disrespectful name stuck. How the Universe started after an explosion from a pin sized point and even more puzzling, why? will set you thinking. You may not grasp it but every atom in our bodies could be traced back to the Big Bang. Carl Sagan had said "We are all made of starstuff" which makes me feel better about myself right awayTyson and Goldsmith provide an entertaining and fascinating scenario of the history of the Universe from its birth at the Big Bang to right now. Space and time became a maelstrom and propelled the galaxies within the eternally expanding Universe as it gets cooler. The book is divided into topics that take you by the hand in baby steps to introduce you to the Cosmos. But the authors in no way dumb down the cosmic events, keeping the book lively, interesting and informative, a Cosmos for all, if you will."Origins" is divided into six main parts each with sub-chaptersThe Origin of the UniverseThe Origin of Galaxies and Cosmic StructureThe Origin of StarsThe Origin of PlanetsThe Origin of LifeGiven that the text must appeal to many levels of knowledge, "Origin" still manages to not only provide a wealth of information about the beginning of the Universe and its evolution, the book is highly entertaining, provocative and just plain interesting, full of meaty nuggets.As regards the possibility of life in the Cosmos, the authors deride Hollywood for putting forever little green men into the minds of people across the planet. Given the enormous variety of life on Earth, that creatures elsewhere in the Universe would look anything like humans is ludicrous. Astrobiologists, a nifty new category of scientists, believe that life anywhere in the Cosmos require:1. a source of energy2. a type of atom that allows complex structures to exist3. a liquid solvent in which molecules can float and interact4. sufficient time for life to arise and developAny reader can thoroughly enjoy this primer to cosmology for its distillation of facts into an interesting and attractive bundle or it can simply be enjoyed for itself. The book includes beautiful full color illustrations of many galaxies including our Milky Way as well as images taken by the Hubble telescope of galaxies ten billion light years away, almost back to the Big Bang."Origin" was published ten years ago. Today, (2014) Stephen Hawking is adjusting his concepts of black holes. Stay tuned!

This book is probably an easy read - for astrophysicists. The authors, Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Donald Goldsmith, combine an encyclopedic knowledge of their subject together with an ability to present their case to those with a strong science background. I am not a scientist so this book was not an easy read. A few parts I found quite dense and other parts overwhelmed me with detail. Nevertheless, on the whole, I was greatly entertained and edified - I certainly know a lot more than I did about "Origins and Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution." The two beginning chapters, called "Preface: A Meditation on the Origin of Science and the Science of Origins," and "Overture,The Greatest Story Ever Told," lay the basis for everything that follows in the book. A new approach toward understanding nature slowly took hold after Nicholas Copernicus in 1543 placed the sun in the middle of our solar system, where it turned out to belong. This was the beginning of the modern scientific era. Over the course of the following centuries numerous people, including Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei, Sir Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein would slowly develop what came to be called "The Scientific Method." This was a new way of acquiring knowledge based on the principle that the most effective way of understanding the cosmos relies on careful observations coupled with attempts to specify broad and basic principles that explain the set of these observations. To this was added organized skepticism so that scientists, as a group, have created a system for self-correction. At the beginning of time, 13.7 billion years ago, all the space, matter and energy of the known universe could fit within a pinhead. The universe was extremely hot so that the basic forces of nature were merged into a single unified force. At this time general relativity (the science of the large) and quantum mechanics (the science of the small) were indistinguishable. However, the universe began to expand and cool at a very rapid rate and gravity split from the other forces. This rapid expansion induced a fifty power of ten increase in the size of the universe - the Big Bang or "epoch of inflation." During its first billion years, the universe continued to expand and cool as matter gravitated into the massive concentrations we call galaxies. High mass stars in these galaxies explode in death, scattering their chemically enriched guts throughout the galaxy. After 7 or 8 billion years of such enrichment, and undistinguished star (the Sun) was born in an undistinguished region (the Orion Arm) of an undistinguished galaxy (the Milky Way) in an undistinguished part of the universe (the outskirts of the Virgo supercluster). As expected, this book is not without some examples of Tyson's dark sense of humor. My absolute favorite is his treatment of Giordano Bruno who once opined that maybe some of the other stars had planets capable of giving life: "Expressing this view in a manner that affronted papal authority brought Giordano Bruno to his death at the stake in 1600. Today, a tourist can pick his way through the crowds at the outdoor cafes in Rome's Campo de Fiori to reach Bruno's statute at its center, then pause for a moment to reflect on the power of ideas (if not the power of those who hold them) to triumph over those who would suppress them." The universe had a beginning and it continues to evolve and expand. Every one of our body's atoms is traceable to the Big Bang. We are part of the universe and are born from it. "One might even say that the universe has empowered us, here in our small corner of the cosmos, to figure itself out. And we have only just begun."

To start negatively, I was slightly disapointed after reading this book. Was expecting a bit more on this big and mystical subject that is "origins".But being a very difficult subject, I would still rate the book as a 4 stars because I still learned a lot from reading it and the style of writing of the authors is enjoyable.Theories and concepts are well explained and abordable by the amateur reader.

A good small quick read on a vast timeless subject.

I loved reading this book, what a read. Full of interesting fs with convoluted math's.

Loving all his books

No being from a science background, NDT is the best author for breaking down galactic sized occurrences in a way that you can understand and also keeping you smiling throughout. This is an amazing book.