Our Cosmic Origins: From the Big Bang to the Emergence of Life and Intelligence

By Armand H. Delsemme

Book Overview

Our Cosmic Origins, first published in 1998, traces the remarkable story of the emergence of life and intelligence right through the complex evolutionary history of the Universe. Armand Delsemme weaves together a rich tapestry of science, bringing together cosmology, astronomy, geology, biochemistry and biology in this wide-ranging book. In following the complex, chronological story, we discover how the first elements formed in the early Universe, how stars and planets were born, how the first bacteria evolved towards a plethora of plants and animals, and how the coupling of the eye and brain led to the development of self-awareness and, ultimately, intelligence. Professor Delsemme concludes with the tantalising suggestion that the existence of alien life and intelligence is likely, and examines our chances of contacting it. This provocative book provides the general reader with an accessible and wide-ranging account of how life evolved on Earth and how likely it is to exist elsewhere in the Universe.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0521620384
• ISBN13: 9780521620383
• Release Date: July 1998
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Length: 344 Pages
• Weight: 1.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.2" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

The BIG picture!

Skirting metaphysics, this book assembles current science from many disciplines to create an integrated framework for understanding ourselves and the universe we live in. "Life, the universe, and everything," would work as a subtitle for this book that covers all the basics, building a launch pad for further explorations in any direction from biology to theology.Without getting bogged down in details, Our Cosmic Origins sketches the basic story of reality as it is understood by science today, leaving open the questions that science cannot (and may never be able to) answer. It does get a little technical at times (there are even a few chemical equations) but it reads more like a detective novel than a textbook. The science is necessary to gain the confidence of readers who already have some knowledge of physics, chemistry, and biology. Others can skim these explanations and take the conclusions on faith without losing the bigger truths revealed in this book.Every thinking person should read this book; it provides a solid foundation relating all empirical knowledge. I can't wait for it to be revised when the unified field theory is discovered!

Mind-expanding!

The book's subtitle reveals an uncommonly wide scope. We get a reconstructed history of our universe from the Big Bang, some 15 billion years ago. The history of the physical universe -- galaxies, stars, planets and the rest -- continues smoothly in the chemical one, and eventually in the evolution of life, on to the gradual emergence of intelligence and consciousness in some branches of the animal kingdom.Delsemme, after a career in French-speaking Europ, is now Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Toledo, Ohio. His book was first published in French, in 1994. The American edition has been revised, updated and expanded. The author's background in a French, European cultural tradition is a special attraction for the English-speaking reader.The author has succeeded well in his efforts to reach the non-specialised reader. As Nobel laureate Christian de Duve writes in his brief foreword: "This is an eminently readable and informative account, consistently written in a language that tries to eschew technical difficulties, while remaining solidly anchored to the realities of scientific concepts. Readers could not wish for a better introduction to the history of the universe."I am myself neither an astronomer, nor a biologist. But I have a long-standing interest in both disciplines. I have read this book with increasing admiration both for the author's wide-ranging knowledge, and his ability to present it in a very palatable form. He also gives the general reader insight into the basics of scientific research. In particular, he exhibits the scientific attitude, which implies hypotheses, which start as creative guesses, but do not emerge as full-fledged theories until tested by carefully designed observations or experiments.Like most modern astronomers, Delsemme adheres to the Big-Bang theory, emphasizing the increasing evidence in its favour. His own special field is the comets, a subject that has received much attention in the last decade, leading to the daring, but not implausible conclusion that the oceans of the earth have arisen from a massive bombardment of the planet by comets in the first billion years of its existence. Darwin's Natural Selection concept, the scientific basis of his evolution theory, is nowadays accepted as a foundation for biological science as a whole. Delsemme extends Darwin's creative insight not only to the creation of the physical world, but also, at the other end, to the world of the mind. Man also , like the physical universe he inhabits, is a product, literally, of star dust.This is popular science at its best. A fascinating, mind-expanding book. For further reading I suggest Edelman & Tononi: A Universe of consciousness.

Emergence of the biosphere

This reference is easy to read, and condenses a vast knowledge ranging from the Big Bang to the emergence of human intelligence, into a moderately compact volume. This reference tends to emphasize the topics related to the author's astrophysical background and interest in the emergence of our biosphere.

A thought-provoking voyage through space and time

This book is the only one that I am aware of that covers a wide variety of topics ranging from the creation of the universe to the evolution of life on earth and the possible existence of life elsewhere. It is an up to date account of the current knowledge in the field of cosmology. The author is very objective and does an excellent analysis of current theories and explains them in a fashion that does not require you to have a PhD in physics. The book is a must for astronomy, cosmology enthusiasts and anyone in general who ponders when looking at the sky at night and asks themselves fundamental questions such as where do we come from ? how did it all start ? and where are we going ?