From the Bookshelf of Science and Inquiry…

The End of Everything

Katie Mack

Start date: October 1, 2023

Finish date: October 31, 2023

Discussion: Book Club 2023

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Oct 22, 2022 Rusty rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: prose, science, non-fiction, audiobook

I don’t think about “The End” of things as much as I used to. I mean, I think about death more than I used to (thanks in large part of every goddamned person I ever cared for dropping dead at about the rate of one per month. I mean, Jesus) but that’s different than thinking about the end of life, or of the earth, or the cosmos.

It’s not that I lost interest, but more that there just isn’t a lot more to think about on the topic, at least as a layperson. Every iota of data that we can collect on t I don’t think about “The End” of things as much as I used to. I mean, I think about death more than I used to (thanks in large part of every goddamned person I ever cared for dropping dead at about the rate of one per month. I mean, Jesus) but that’s different than thinking about the end of life, or of the earth, or the cosmos.

It’s not that I lost interest, but more that there just isn’t a lot more to think about on the topic, at least as a layperson. Every iota of data that we can collect on the topic of the mysteries of the universe is is a massive effort of thousands of people, millions (or billions) of dollars, and engineering on the very limits of what is currently possible.

And the results of experiments give us results that are often ambiguous, giving credence to many possible models or interpretations. They draw hucksters and peddlers of nonsense like magnets*, and even people trying to understand what has been discovered can end up so filled with misinformation that it’s almost worse to be casually informed than it is to be completely ignorant, at least in the latter case you know you are ignorant.

So, we, humanity, have to fight and crawl and scream at the universe (metaphorically) in order to get even the teeniest bit of real knowledge. And the reward is messy answers that imply things. Slowly, over the centuries, we started developing a picture, murky as it is, of what the life of our universe is like.

And this book, very nicely, sort of summarizes it. Probably. Honestly, I forgot I read this book, and I forgot every single thing it said. I literally remember nothing. If someone asked me yesterday if I’d read this I probably would have said no, but that it seemed interesting. It’s exactly for reasons like this that I started reviewing books in the first place. So I can rediscover books I’ve read but forgotten about.

Of course, I wasn’t supposed to forget about them before I review them. So that’s on me. My bad. If it matters, I seem to recall that I really liked this, but for whatever reason, it didn’t stick in my memory at all. I put that down to me, not the book.

I’ll probably read it again, just because I’m annoyed at myself for so throughly forgetting.

*Case in point. I read a book last year about he construction of the LIGO observatory, again, one of the more impressive feats of engineering the world has ever produced, and locals near the lab were convinced it was a nefarious government program to send agents back in time to, I don’t know, do murders and stuff.
Those people aren’t the hucksters I was referring to above or anything, but they are peddlers of nonsense. It’s a mysterious science project and the real answers aren’t satisfying to them. Listening for the gravitational waves of black holes is a few steps too far removed, to esoteric, for some people. So they refuse to believe anyone else would be willing pour resources into something they see so little value in. And instead, they make up their own story about what is really happening.
I won’t even start about ‘documentaries’ that intentionally mislead in a much more insidious manner by giving a kernel of truth that they can distort into a narrative to make it more entertaining. Let alone internet memes and politically inspired bs. ...more

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