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REALLY RIVETING READS

Peter Spinks reviews a selection of books he recommends on popular science and technology

The Goldilocks Enigma

By Paul Davies (Allen Lane, 2006)

WHY are we here? Could it be that life, perhaps even consciousness, is writ large into the laws of physics? Or is life just a fluke, the chance after-effect of a world that simply happens to exist - an accidental universe, so to speak?

Successive religions have tried for millennia to explain existence by invoking the direct or indirect actions of a single deity or panoply of divine beings. Now a small but growing band of indefatigable scientists are trying their hand at fathoming the hitherto unfathomable.

Few are better equipped for the job than Paul Davies, the internationally acclaimed physicist, deepest of thinkers and science author par excellence. He has long been puzzled by the universe's "bio-friendliness"; in other words, the laws of physics, like Goldilocks' porridge, seem "just right" for life. By life he doesn't mean Homo sapiens per se, but life in a general sense. This is fortunate because Cambridge scientist Stephen Hawking once said: "The human race is just a chemical scum on a moderate-sized planet."

Davies is reluctant to dismiss life so readily. As far as he's concerned, science might never really get a fix on the grand cosmic blueprint (assuming there is one, of course) unless life and consciousness are adequately accounted for.

Taking life, mind and purpose seriously, as he puts it, Davies writes: "I cannot accept these features as a package of marvels which just happen to be, which exist reasonlessly. It seems to me that there is a genuine scheme of things - the universe is about something." At the same time, he is "uneasy about dumping the whole set of problems in the lap of an arbitrary god, or abandoning all further thought and declaring existence ultimately to be a mystery".

Religious believers accept such mysteries, or at least are reconciled to being saddled with them, while atheistic scientists seem happy enough to write off the whole shebang as a series of coincidences and extraordinary but otherwise potentially explicable evolutionary accidents that merit no further analysis or scrutiny.

Davies finds such approaches unsatisfactory. Why, for example, was this universe created and not another? (Other universes may exist - leaving ours as a self-contained region in a much larger multiverse - but these other worlds would be inaccessible.) What is the purpose of life - indeed is there one? And the biggest conundrum of all: why does the universe exist in the first place?

Ever the optimist, Davies argues cogently that science not only could but should tackle the biggest of questions. He recently moved from Australia to Arizona State University in the United States to set up a sort of cosmic think tank studying "life, the universe and everything", to coin a phrase from Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Such herculean efforts are not as far-fetched as they sound. For example, scientists have been searching for some time for a so-called final theory, which would meld together all four of nature's fundamental forces. No such all-encompassing theory is currently within reach, but one might be achieved in coming decades.

Would such an ambitious theory explain why the universe exists? Perhaps not directly, Davies suggests. That task might fall to other models, such as the self-explanatory universe that essentially explains itself or, even more amazingly, creates itself. (Now there's a thought, but one upon which I shan't elaborate here; you'll need to read the book to find out how!)

Another possibility (although this, too, doesn't necessarily explain existence) is that, in the unimaginably distant future, "life and mind will spread out into the cosmos, perhaps from Earth alone, perhaps from many planets. A progressively larger fraction of the universe will be brought under intelligent control". Under this staggering scenario, a sort of super-duper mind eventually merges with the universe to form what might be regarded as a cosmic mind - or mindful cosmos, if you like.

A heady mix of riveting fundamental science (which Davies is second to none at explaining), marvellous mathematical models (all described without resorting to a single equation) and some truly wild and weird conjecture, the book is at times so mind-boggling that you are left reeling.

Are we bashing our heads against the limits of human comprehension? Quite possibly: Martin Rees, Britain's Astronomer Royal and arguably one of the brightest people on earth, remarked recently that brains like his were unlikely to be capable of grasping the ultimate nature of reality. So is there hope for the rest of humankind? Probably not, if you take a conventional Western perspective.

Yet other world views offer alternative ways of thinking about fundamental truth, such as some schools of Buddhist thought, which the book does not discuss. Last year, a US-based scholar of Buddhism, James Hughes, sent me an email explaining: "Buddhist ontology argues that all things are empty of enduring nature, and constantly changing, and that the human mind also creates meaning and order out of the universe, where there is no essential meaning and order." This implies that searching for an ultimate reality is futile.

Mathematics, on the other hand, certainly seems to enable physicists to find meaning and order - in a consistent and predictable fashion - throughout the physical world. Might that be because mathematics is a product of the human mind? Platonists, who believe that physical objects are impermanent representations of unchanging ethereal ideals, would doubtless say no - but they may not be right.

Davies' book weighs up the welter of pros and cons in the most entertaining and engaging of ways, but stops short, enigmatically, of saying which ideas are right or wrong: for the present, no one really knows.

Necessarily technical in places but accessible throughout, this gripping tome guarantees two things: it will get you thinking about the deepest matters the human mind can contemplate - and porridge will never seem the same again.

Book in some library time

Peter Spinks reviews the cream of the latest crop of science books for young readers.

DID you know that the first animals to walk on land roughly 400 million years ago were millipedes and spiders? Or that insects form part of the daily diet of up to 80 per cent of people around the world? And were you aware that Australia's lime-green, fernlike-leaved Wollemi pine is the world's rarest tree?

Children's science books keep improving and seem to be fending off increasing competition from electronic media.My favourite this year, as the opening two questions suggest, is Caroline Bingham, Ben Morgan and Matthew Robertson's Buzz (Dorling Kindersley, 2007), a bugs-and-all account of the insect kingdom, brilliantly illustrated and brimming with extraordinary facts and fi gures.

Not far behind, and from the same publisher, is Carey Scott's Crime Scene (Dorling Kindersley, 2007), complete with magnifying glass and fi ngerprinting kit. It provides tips and tricks galore for prospective forensics super sleuths wanting to track down robbers, forgers or murderers.

DK has produced a fully updated version of its all-embracing and very useful Encyclopedia of Science, while Chris Woodford's Energy (Dorling Kindersley, 2007) is a new take on a tireless topic. Much the same can be said for Richard Hammond's Can You Feel The Force? and Jilly Macleod's How Nearly Everything Was Invented.

Not to be outdone, National Geographic's "Science Quest" series includes Kate Boehm Jerome's Atomic Universe (the quest to discover radioactivity). It also takes in Glen Phelan's An Invisible Force (the quest to defi ne the laws of motion), Killing Germs, Saving Lives (the quest for the fi rst vaccines) and Double Helix (the quest to uncover the structure of DNA). All four are exceptionally clear and place each topic in sharp historical perspective.

National Geographic this year introduced a "Jump into Science" series, which includes simply penned and compellingly illustrated gems like Steve Tomecek's Dirt and Ellen Prager's Earthquakes. The latter is a bone-shakingly hot topic and Rigby's Volcanoes and Earthquakes is one of several nice reads by Kate Boehm Nyquist; another is Plant Power. Earthquakes and volcanoes also feature in Nicolas Brasch's Eyewitness Nature's Forces (Rigby, 2007), as do cyclones, floods, tsunamis and landslides. Children, it seems, can't get enough of them.

Parents, on the other hand, might appreciate the latest in the "It's True" series - Thalia Kalkipsakis' Sleep Makes You Smarter (Allen & Unwin, 2007). Diana Lawrenson's Your Bones Are Stronger Than Concrete, part of the same series, is also entertaining.

For home experimenters, Ruben Meerman's The Surfi ng Scientist (ABC Books, 2007) outlines 40 science tricks, such as launching plastic cups with a puff of air or raising a jar of rice with a pencil. Try them.

Sydney-based New Holland has produced an informative series under the Young Reed imprint including Lee Curtis' Wallabies, Wombats and Other Mammals, Ian Rohr's Snappers, Stingers and Stabbers of Australia, Paul Zborowski's Spiders, Snails and Other Minibeasts of Australia and Steve Wilson's Snakes, Lizards, Crocs and Turtles of Australia. Oh, and not forgetting Marion Anstis' Frogs and Tadpoles of Australia. Each book ends with a comprehensive glossary and recommended further reading.

Christopher Cheng's Amazing Australian Animals (Random House Australia, 2007) is also well worth reading. Yet other intriguing aspects of Australian life are covered in John Nicholson's Cedar, Seals and Whaling Ships and Songlines and Stone Axes (both Allen & Unwin, 2007).

Science fi ction for children is also in vogue. Noteworthy is Nury Vittachi's Twilight in the Land of Nowhen (Allen & Unwin, 2006), a highly amusing account of the trials of a boy who is three seconds ahead of everyone else. Also good is Pamela Rushby's Shuttle to the Moon (Rigby, 2007), in which young Toby reluctantly accompanies his parents on a fi ve-year lunar life experience; pity no mention is made of the fact that people are lighter on the moon than on Earth.

An entirely factual account of an astronaut's lot, by the way, can be found in Robyn Opie's short and illuminating Living in Space (Barrie Publishing, 2007). Particularly worth watching out for in October, when it's published in Australia, is Lucy and Stephen Hawking's George's Secret Key to the Universe (Doubleday, 2007), which combines the Cambridge University professor's profound knowledge of the cosmos with his daughter's gift for storytelling.

Back on Earth, meanwhile, "whodunit" veterans Simon Torok and Paul Holper return this month with The Rockstar Robbery and The Mystery of the Mummy's Mask (both Pan Macmillan Australia, 2007).