Andrew Cohen - Human Universe

Off Centre

Changing Perspective

Outwards to the Milky Way

Searching for Patterns in Starlight

Beyond the Milky Way

The Great Debate

The Political Ramifications of Reality, or ‘How to Avoid Getting Locked Up’

The Happiest Thought of My Life

A Day Without Yesterday

Are We Alone?

Science Fact or Fiction?

The First Aliens

Listen Very Carefully

The Golden Voyage

Alien Worlds

The Recipe for Life

Origins

A Brief History of Life on Earth

A Briefest Moment in Time

So, are We Alone?

Who are We?

Spaceman

Apeman

Lucy in the Sky

From the North Star to the Stars

Climate Change in the Rift Valley and Human Evolution

‘An Unprecedented Duel with Nature’

Farming: The Bedrock of Civilisation

The Kazak Adventure: Part 1

Intermission: Beyond Memory

The Kazak Adventure: Part 2

Why are We Here?

A Neat Piece of Logic

New Dawn Fades

The Rules of the Game

Nature’s Fingerprint

A Brief History of the Snowflake

How the Leopard Got Its Spots

A Universe Made for Us?

A Day Without Yesterday?

What is Our Future?

Making the Darkness Visible

Sudden Impact

Seeing the Future

Science Vs. Magic

The Wonder of It All

Dreamers: Part 1

Dreamers: Part 2

The End

Plate Section Credits

Picture Section

Footnotes

Index

Acknowledgements

About the Authors

About the Publisher

WHAT A PIECE OF WORK IS A

MAN, HOW NOBLE IN REASON,

HOW INFINITE IN FACULTIES,

IN FORM AND MOVING HOW

EXPRESS AND ADMIRABLE, IN

ACTION HOW LIKE AN ANGEL, IN

APPREHENSION HOW LIKE A GOD!

THE BEAUTY OF THE WORLD,

THE PARAGON OF ANIMALS –

AND YET, TO ME, WHAT IS THIS

QUINTESSENCE OF DUST? MAN

DELIGHTS NOT ME – NOR WOMAN

NEITHER, THOUGH BY YOUR

SMILING YOU SEEM TO SAY SO.

HAMLET

What is a human being? Objectively, nothing of consequence. Particles of dust in an infinite arena, present for an instant in eternity. Clumps of atoms in a universe with more galaxies than people. And yet a human being is necessary for the question itself to exist, and the presence of a question in the universe – any question – is the most wonderful thing. Questions require minds, and minds bring meaning. What is meaning? I don’t know, except that the universe and every pointless speck inside it means something to me. I am astonished by the existence of a single atom, and find my civilisation to be an outrageous imprint on reality. I don’t understand it. Nobody does, but it makes me smile.

This book asks questions about our origins, our destiny, and our place in the universe. We have no right to expect answers; we have no right to even ask. But ask and wonder we do. Human Universe is first and foremost a love letter to humanity; a celebration of our outrageous fortune in existing at all. I have chosen to write my letter in the language of science, because there is no better demonstration of our magnificent ascent from dust to paragon of animals than the exponentiation of knowledge generated by science. Two million years ago we were apemen. Now we are spacemen. That has happened, as far as we know, nowhere else. That is worth celebrating.

We shall not cease from exploration,

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.

T. S. Eliot

For me, it was an early 1960s brick-built bungalow on Oakbank Avenue. If the wind was blowing from the east you could smell vinegar coming from Sarson’s Brewery – although these were rare days in Oldham, a town usually subjected to Westerlies dumping Atlantic moisture onto the textile mills, dampening their red brick in a permanent sheen against the sodden sky. On a good day, though, you’d take the vinegar in return for sunlight on the moors. Oldham looks like Joy Division sounds – and I like Joy Division. There was a newsagent on the corner of Kenilworth Avenue and Middleton Road and on Fridays my granddad would take me there and we’d buy a toy – usually a little car or truck. I’ve still got most of them. When I was older, I’d play tennis on the red cinder courts in Chadderton Hall Park and drink Woodpecker cider on the bench in the grounds of St Matthew’s Church. One autumn evening just after the start of the school year, and after a few sips, I had my first kiss there – all cold nose and sniffles. I suppose that sort of behaviour is frowned upon these days; the bloke in the off-licence would have been prosecuted by Oldham Council’s underage cider tsar and I’d be on a list. But I survived, and, eventually, I left Oldham for the University of Manchester.