The State of the Universe

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Review - The State of the Universe - Pedro G. Ferreira

There are rather a lot of books out there giving us the basics of cosmology. To make its mark, a new title has to have something really good going for it - unfortunately, The State of the Universe doesn't. As an introductory text for students it's more readable than the average textbook, but it's really not detailed enough to fulfil that role. As popular science, it is just too dull. The subtitle "a primer in modern cosmology" says it all - this book is simply not gripping, which is a shame, because cosmology is the sort of subject that ought to thrill.

Pedro Ferreira begins by looking back to the Ancient Greeks and brings us forward into the modern era - this is perfectly acceptable, and works better than plunging into the latest theories up front. This doesn't mean, though that he holds back from the modern stuff - after explaining the thinking of the Hubble era, from standard candles to cosmological red shift, and all the tools of the twentieth century cosmologists, he takes us fearlessly into the realm of dark matter and dark energy. This is one of the better examples we've seen of an explanation of the latter concept, if you can get through it without giving up. Part of Ferreira's approach is to make it clear that Einstein hadn't got the last word, which is always encouraging.

Apart from the lack of readability in the text, the other problem is the illustrations. These are hand drawn and look just like you'd expect a scribbled diagram by a non-artist to be. It's the sort of thing someone like Einstein might get away with, because you'd be interested to see what his drawings looked like - but isn't helping anyone as a deliberate attempt to help explain concepts. The drawings simply don't work. I thought when I first saw the book they were the author's own attempt, but apparently they were provided by someone who has been artist in residence at Oxford's department of Astrophysics. Unfortunately this doesn't stop them from lacking the clarity and precision to illustrate the points they are supposed to bring out. They are just irritating.

All in all, then, something of a disappointment. You'd be better trying Simon Singh's Big Bang and Martin Rees' Just Six Numbers to get an overview of cosmology that still has plenty of fascinating content, but is also eminently readable.

Only in hardback

Reviewed by Peter Spitz

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