#28 in Popular science
The End of Everything
- 240
- Pages
- about 4.5 h
- Reading time
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Our view
The ways the universe might end are the subject of “The End of Everything”, a lively and witty tour of modern cosmology by Katherine Mack. Each candidate ending, from a Big Crunch to a Big Rip, opens a path into quantum mechanics and string theory. Some readers find the explanations clear without any background in physics and enjoy the author’s humour. At 240 pages it is a compact read for anyone curious about the cosmos.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE ECONOMIST, OBSERVER, NEW SCIENTIST, BBC FOCUS, INDEPENDENT AND WASHINGTON POST 'A rollicking tour of the wildest physics. . . Like an animated discussion with your favourite quirky and brilliant professor' Leah Crane, New Scientist 'Weird science, explained beautifully' - John Scalzi We know the universe had a beginning. But what happens at the end of the story? With lively wit and wry humour, astrophysicist Katie Mack takes us on a mind-bending tour through each of the cosmos' possible finales: the Big Crunch, Heat Death, Vacuum Decay, the Big Rip and the Bounce. Guiding us through major concepts in quantum mechanics, cosmology, string theory and much more, she describes how small tweaks to our incomplete understanding of reality can result in starkly different futures. Our universe could collapse in upon itself, or rip itself apart, or even - in the next five minutes - succumb to an inescapable expanding bubble of doom. This captivating story of cosmic escapism examines a mesmerizing yet unfamiliar physics landscape while sharing the excitement a leading astrophysicist feels when thinking about the universe and our place in it. Amid stellar explosions and bouncing universes, Mack shows that even though we puny humans have no chance of changing how it all ends, we can at least begin to understand it. The End of Everything is a wildly fun, surprisingly upbeat ride to the farthest reaches of all that we know.
Where the score comes from
The sources average 8.2 across 95 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 39% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Popular science average of 8.3. That is how 8.3 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 7.6 | 5 | 5% |
| Hardcover | 8.3 | 90 | 95% |
Frequently asked
How long is The End of Everything?
It has 240 pages — shorter than 81% of the ranked books in Popular science.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Popular science — with scores between 8.2 and 8.3, closest to this book.
