As usual I didn't manage to follow all of it - and as usual it didn't matter to my satisfaction with the book. I learned a lot here and there and although I'm not a convert yet, I love the ideas of self-organization and natural selection. My biggest failing is maybe not understanding the guage principle but there were a lot of other brilliant ideas I did grasp a bit. Rotation forces (or the lack of them) in an otherwise empty universe, inertia and energy flows. And I've fallen in love with galaxies.... got to find out more. ( )

As usual I didn't manage to follow all of it - and as usual it didn't matter to my satisfaction with the book. I learned a lot here and there and although I'm not a convert yet, I love the ideas of self-organization and natural selection. My biggest failing is maybe not understanding the guage principle but there were a lot of other brilliant ideas I did grasp a bit. Rotation forces (or the lack of them) in an otherwise empty universe, inertia and energy flows. And I've fallen in love with galaxies.... got to find out more. ( )

Highly controversial when it came out, this book shows the influence of the New Sciences being developed at the Santa Fe Institute (pioneered by Murray Gell-Mann, Stuart Kauffman, and Lee Smolin, among others), which include complexity, chaos, autocatalytics, and conscilience.

Smolin develops the argument that atomists and string theorists have reached the end of their ability to explain how the universe works and cannot resolve the integration of gravity with quantum theory probably due to their approach to the problem. He says it’s time to cast aside the world view that physical laws are unique and unchanging and begin thinking that laws of Nature may evolve and depend on contingent conditions and the history of the universe.

Scalar ranges, he asserts, are such that it’s going to take acknowledgment that the physics of the plasma stage of the universe probably weren’t the same as they are now. This leads one to conclude that it may be impossible to ever know accurately anything about the very early "life" of our Universe, as well as implying there may be unknowable things in the observable Universe as a result.

Written well before the LHC work in Geneva, no evidence for the existence of the Higgs boson existed. While we’re not much better at capturing neutrinos or “seeing” gravity waves, we are closer to discovering the particle responsible for mass. However, Smolin points out that fundamental particle discovery hasn’t (til the time of his writing) done anything to answer question like why are the masses of fundamental particles what they are; why are there only 4 forces and four basic particles; and why do the ratios of forces and particles exist in the harmony that makes the existence of stars possible. These are the questions that intrigue him. ( )

This book tries to establish the cosmological natural selection as a theory that should help the understanding of the universe and adds to cosmology and other areas of physics. I have to say that this is a book for physicists. The first 1/3 of it is interesting and seems focused on the task at hand. But after that it becomes harder and harder to read because not only the physics gets deeper but also because there seems to be no point or goal in the argumentation, it “lacks coherent structure” like someone said in a previous review. Nevertheless, the subject is very interesting and the reading worthwhile. ( )

I first read this soon after it was released, and though I would not consider myself an expert by any means on the topics of astrophysics, I did feel comfortable to dive into Smolin's book. For those who are leary of 'science' books, I feel comfortable to say that the science curve is not daunting at all, and there are several symbolic examples, which seem to revolve around cats- so for feline fans, maybe add half a star. Nevertheless the book drifts more to the philosophical rather than the physical, and I for one enjoyed this transition, as concepts such as string theory and nitty-gritty astrophysical ruminations require a thought pattern somewhat 'alien' to what we normally encounter in everyday life. Given as well that much of these concepts are in fact theory, and the trend toward the philosophical is more understandable. But what I found perhaps more interesting was the feel one gets for the way in which men such as Smolin construct their thoughts, and it gives a more humanist perspective on the theories rather than just numbers and equations. And yes, given the time that has passed since its first printing, I'm sure there are more scientific critiques that could be formulated for 'Life of the Cosmos', but it is still a very educational read, and quite enjoyable. ( )