What Shape is Space?

Giles Sparrow Thames & Hudson £12.95 z PB

They say that space is the final frontier, but where does the final frontier end? Does space have a limit, or does it stretch beyond the limits of our imaginations and towards the infinite? What Shape is Space? boldly endeavours to investigate these questions. At first glance the book’s layout appears to mirror the complexities of the questions it addresses. The text is presented in a dizzying array of font sizes and scattered paragraphs, but there is method in the typographical madness. The prose is actually presented in a hierarchical manner, with the information most key to understanding the overall concept presented in the largest fonts. The book is broken down into four key topics that explore the evidence for an expanding and infinite Universe; the rate of the cosmos’s expansion; the shape of the Universe; and, finally, the possibility of an infinite multiverse and how each possible shape affects our own Universe’s eventual fate.

Sparrow’s prose is engaging and, for the most part, accessible to those with some prior grounding in the subject, although as you delve deeper into the diminishing text hierarchy the complexity does increase.

The radical layout may prove to be too eclectic for some readers, and, while the format works in some respects, many of the illustrations and visualisations are relegated to the margins as they find themselves fighting a losing battle with the book’s multiverse of fonts.

Putting the somewhat divisive design aside, there is a great deal to recommend about Sparrow’s book for those wanting an approachable primer to this hugely complex question.