Foreword by Stephen Hawking

Book description from the publisher:
The experimental triumphs and theoretical insights of recent astrophysical discovery offer the most dramatic enlargement in our concept of the universe since astronomers first realized the sun's true place among the stars. In this engaging and carefully reasoned account of our universe and its place within a grander scheme, Sir Martin Rees-one of the most creative and original of contemporary scientists-draws these advances together with his own up-to-the-minute research and that of his fellow astronomers and cosmologists.

Carefully distinguishing between what is known from what is still only speculation in cosmology, Professor Rees argues that a family-even an infinity-of universes could have been created, some before and some after the one we inhabit, each in its own big bang. Every baby universe acquires a distinctive imprint and its own laws of physics; but only some of those universes will have just the right conditions to permit the origin of life.

Rees shows how this multi-universe revolution in cosmological thought casts a piercing light on man's place in the cosmos, and argues that the conditions permitting the evolution of life stand on the razor's edge between a dead universe and one filled with living beings.

"Martin [Rees] is a scientific magician: he leaves you wondering: `Where did he get that idea from?'"

— George Efstathiou, cosmologist, Oxford University, in The Sunday Telegraph

"Rees is to be commended for telling the unadorned story of the latest developments in cosmology in a forthright and compelling manner."

—Joseph Silk in Nature

"If you haven't read a single cosmology book, this is a good place to start."

—John D. Barrow in New Scientist

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