When you buy this book --if you buy it-- take into account that was published on 1997. Is it important? Yes. And it is because new concepts, as Dark Energy, began to be discussed just after the publication of "Before the beginning." The problem with this recently discovered component of the universe is that not only explain better some observations but also --and for the same reason-- shows us that the expansion is actually accelerating. This fascinating discovery has been under discussion for the last ten years or so. Actually, in the most recent publications has been appearing increasingly. For Example, in a 2009 publication, "Einstein's Telescope," Evalyn Gates tells us that "dark energy is the freaky one [among the types of matter that make up the universe]. It doesn't slow the expansion of the Universe but gives it an extra boost, causing the expansion to accelerate." But not only that. Dark energy is the major component of the Cosmos. And Martin Rees not even mention it in his book.
Now, why do I recommend to read "Before the beginning" anyway?
It is because the same reason that anyone of us reads "The Odyssey" although we know there is no Cyclopes out there. The same we have to read Darwin's "The Origin of Species," even though he didn't know about genes. And the same reason we have to read the correspondence between Einstein and Michele Besso that stopped in 1955.
In a word: it is because we need to see the whole picture. Because it is good to remember that what we know today in cosmology is a summation of several approaches and attempts, some successful and some failed, that constitutes the curious economy of science. Martin Rees tells you about that from the very first chapters (see, for example, his discussion about Fred Hoyle and his ('erroneous') steady-state model of the universe). In fact, I would say that the book dedicates more than a half to prepare you to understand the important issues that are going to be discussed from chapter nine onwards.
Thus, the historical contents are the platform that Rees uses to launch you beyond the questions. And here is where the author, in my opinion, moves like the fish in the water. He is really good at conjecturing and speculating seriously about the hard topics. He proposes solutions to the big enigmas of the creation based on what we know and what we could get to know in the near future. This is the case, to put an example, of the omega value that establishes "the ratio between the actual and the critical density" of the universe. (Note that Omega is one of the six numbers that Rees revise in his "Just six numbers.") So he asks: "Can it be as large as 1? We still can't answer this question." But after seven pages he adds: "If I were to place a bet now, it would be that omega will indeed equal 1." I insist, Rees is a scientist and he thinks and even reflects without losing sight of the data. From time to time you feel that he is a bit much pondered and measured but I guess that in doing that he brilliantly solves the temptation of being certain and dogmatic in an elusive field like this. One with a story whose end is open.
As I have said, the first eight chapters are fundamentally a preparation for reading the last seven. From chapter nine, "Back to 'the beginning'," up to chapter thirteen, "Anthropic Reasoning...," the book put the cards on the table. These are the chapters where Rees make you feel you didn't lose your money, just the opposite.
Now well, for doing this, the author touches the tough topics: the creation and the need for a creator; the inflation and the multiverse; the destiny of the universe; the time. He explains with simple words what is hard to grasp and in doing this he ensures himself of being understood. The last two chapters are the best of the book. In them, Rees talks about the nature's constants and the anthropic principle. He faces the difficult parts with intelligence and eloquence. You feel obliged to think and consider your own beliefs.
But I cannot finish this review without mentioning that Rees writes with an elegant style. In doing so he builds a narrative which is full of appropriate quotations and well constructed images. Talking about dark matter, he says: "We know far more, of course, about the bright matter --made of ordinary atoms-- but this could be a misleading "tracer": galaxies may, for instance, lie preferentially in the largest concentrations of dark matter, just as the white crests highlight the highest ocean waves."
Rees (1942) is a cosmologist who loves what he does and wants to transmit what he knows to everyone. If this isn't love what else could be? Whoever tries to transmit difficult issues have the problem of being trapped or lost in the translation. The foam that makes up the universe and the different images that are used to put it in words are always provisional and incomplete. Rees faces the risks of doing it without the equations and the math, and so delivers a highly illustrated guide to the universe and its possible beginnings.
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Top reviews from other countries
Jørgen G. Jacobsen
Universe vs. multiverse?
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 1, 2013D Michael Sheath
I'm still reading it but a fine story so far
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 17, 2015
S P Mead
Quite interesting, but very limited.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 31, 2016Jean Trudel
Pas pour les illettrés de la cosmologie!
Reviewed in Canada on October 19, 2016