In this companion volume to the two-part NOVA television special,Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson and astronomy writer Donald Goldsmith attempt to cram 14 billion years of cosmic history into 300 pages. The result is the most informative, congenial and accessible general look at cosmology to come along since Carl Sagan?s Cosmos 27 years ago.

The authors adopt a conversational style suited to readers new to the ideas and vocabulary of the Big Bang cosmology; they make comprehensible the connections between subatomic physics and the structure of the Universe. With that as background, they flit between the epoch of infinite density and temperature and the contemporary eon of galaxies. According to the authors, a hundred billion years from now all but the closest galaxies will have vanished over our horizon of visibility.

The book will make you ruminate over the fate of our species as well as the Universe. Because it aims at high clarity the authors don?t hesitate to lace it with humour.

A great book for those interested in astrophysics.