Notes from Book: A Short History of Nearly Everything

Review
Chapter 1 How to build a universe
It explains in further detail, how the universe started from nothing, to
everything. Every particle of matter pg 27 compact into something so small
known as a singularity, creating the Big Bang. It discusses inflation and manyuniverse theory. Inflation theory, suggests that space experienced an incredibly
big expansion in a fraction of a second after the so called beginning. The
multi-universe theory, which explains there are many universes, disconnected
from one another. The book states one assumption which I found fairly
interesting, that the singularity from the Big Bang, was merely a relic from
other collapsed universe, hence suggesting an eternal cycle of expanding
and collapsing universes pg 31.
The statement, we are not adrift in some large, ever-expanding bubble.
Rather, space curves, in a way that allows it to be boundless but finite. pg 36
was indeed, interesting, considering its new and important knowledge. The first
chapter increased my curiosity of how are we here? And of course what its
meant by here?
Chapter 2 Welcome to the solar system
It discusses how impressive the astronomers are; also it demonstrates how
huge the universe is, by describing our own solar system. According to the
book, if we imagine traveling to Pluto, it would take roughly 12 years to reach
it, in a spaceship travelling at 56,000 km/h (best speeds yet achieved). Pluto
isnt the last thing to reach the edge of the solar system, but the Oort cloud. In
order to reach this, it would take roughly ten thousand years. This information
is very impacting, imagining that ...there is absolutely no prospect that any
human being will ever visit the edge of our own solar system - ever.pg 46
In this chapter, it emphasizes how space is enormous; we are, but an
insignificant fraction of the universe. For instance, the book refers to the
average distance of the stars, it being 30 million million kilometres pg 48. I
found very interesting the representations of the solar system if it were drawn
by scale. According to the book, the distances between the planets in the solar
system are so apart, that even if Jupiter was as small as the full stop at the
end of this sentence, and Pluto was no bigger than a molecule, Pluto would still
be over 10 metres away. (From Earth) this caught my attention, never
imagined the huge difference in distances.