Until The End Of Time

Brian Greene Penguin Books £10.99 ● PB

Perhaps one of the biggest mysteries in the Universe is why we are capable of understanding it. Where does the ability to do science come from and how is it linked to our species’ evolution? Brian Greene, theoretical cosmologist and popular science writer (probably best known for The Elegant Universe) gets to grips with the biggest subject possible: the origin and potential fate of the Universe. He makes this ambitious task doubly so by including an account of our search for meaning in scientific data: a search characterised as a human affinity for telling stories, whether they are scientific ones about the facts we discover, or non-scientific narratives characterised as ‘religion’ and ‘art’.

The chapters that start and conclude the book discuss the all-important concept of entropy and explain how ordered systems, such as life itself, can emerge from a Universe governed by the second law of thermodynamics and the overall slide towards disorder. The middle chapters examine the roles of art, culture and religion in human evolution but this discussion feels too brief to do justice to the subject matter. He also takes on consciousness, and here his dismissal of our apparent free will in a Universe ruled by physical laws feels one-sided.

Greene’s undoubted talent for science communication is demonstrated in his clear explanations of complex physics, but overall the book is an odd mixture of factual science and platitudes on the ability of art to uplift. ★★★★★