Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe

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Ambitious and utterly readable . . . [Greene] weaves personal stories, scientific ideas, concepts and facts into a delightful tapestry . . . What is remarkable about Mr. Greene’s book is how he has delved into deep questions that not only have no simple answers but may never be settled at all.”

Coming into this book, I did not expect it to be as philosophical as it is, even with the book’s full title being, Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe. Emphasis on “search for meaning!” In my mind, science and philosophy were mutually exclusive. Greene suggests that the knowledge of inevitable death drives people to leave a mark, to accomplish something that lasts beyond themselves. This may be the impetus that inspires scientists, scholars, artists, musicians, writers, etc. Things start well with this latest title from Brian Greene: after a bit of introductory woffle we get into an interesting introduction to entropy. As always with Greene's writing, this is readable, chatty and full of little side facts and stories. Unfortunately, for me, the book then suffers something of an increase in entropy itself as on the whole it then veers more into philosophy and the soft sciences than Greene's usual physics and cosmology.His relatives weren't too thrilled with her and even more when he leaves the family lawyer firm and studies to be a minister. Brian Greene’s latest book Until the End of Time is a fascinating scientific journey from the beginning of the universe, the Big Bang, through a step by step analysis taking us trillions and trillions of years into the future, when the universe will disappear. Fortunately, or maybe not, the species of human beings will vanish trillions of years before the universe ends. Of course it's perfectly possible to write good science books on, say, consciousness or language - but though Greene touches on the science, there far too much that's more hand-waving. And good though he is at explaining physics, I'm not sure Greene is the right person for the job of dealing with these softer subjects.

Greene includes the work and opinions of many scientists and philosophers in his discussions, and tells personal anecdotes to illustrate some points - like the time he blew up the oven at the age of ten; or was thrilled by the aurora borealis; or saw his daughter let go of a soaring swing and tumble to the ground. These discussions include consideration of gravity, repulsive gravity; dark energy, electromagnetic and nuclear forces, the Higgs field, and other such things that physicists love. No matter what, however, the universe will ultimately disintegrate into widely separated teeny tiny particles that are randomly drifting around.

Until the End of Time

A burning question for scientists, philosophers and much of the general public is 'How did life begin?' In the eyes of physicists like Greene, the 'molecular spark' that animated a collection of particles to 'come alive' is explainable by natural laws we haven't yet discovered. The particles themselves slowly formed after the Big Bang, eventually organizing into proto DNA-like molecules that could reproduce themselves.... As the book progresses, however, things get murkier. Philosophically, one thing you can say about Green is that he is consistent in his reductionist stance. Greene believes that everything can be explained—at least theoretically—with reference only to the laws and motions of fundamental particles. He does admit, however, that the prospect of actually doing this is virtually impossible, as the human mind (and for that matter any computer) does not have the cognitive or computational capacity to make such calculations.