Calculating the Cosmos

How Mathematics Unveils the Universe

By: Ian Stewart

Narrated by: Dana Hickox

Length: 12 hrs and 39 mins

Publisher's summary

In Calculating the Cosmos, Ian Stewart presents an exhilarating guide to the cosmos, from our solar system to the entire universe. He describes the architecture of space and time, dark matter and dark energy, how galaxies form, why stars implode, how everything began, and how it's all going to end. He considers parallel universes, the fine-tuning of the cosmos for life, what forms extraterrestrial life might take, and the likelihood of life on Earth being snuffed out by an asteroid.

Beginning with the Babylonian integration of mathematics into the study of astronomy and cosmology, Stewart traces the evolution of our understanding of the cosmos: How Kepler's laws of planetary motion led Newton to formulate his theory of gravity. How, two centuries later, tiny irregularities in the motion of Mars inspired Einstein to devise his general theory of relativity. How, 80 years ago, the discovery that the universe is expanding led to the development of the Big Bang theory of its origins. How single-point origin and expansion led cosmologists to theorize new components of the universe, such as inflation, dark matter, and dark energy. But does inflation explain the structure of today's universe? Does dark matter actually exist? Could a scientific revolution that will challenge the long-held scientific orthodoxy and once again transform our understanding of the universe be on the way? In an exciting and engaging style, Calculating the Cosmos is a mathematical quest through the intricate realms of astronomy and cosmology.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.

©2016 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (P)2016 Gildan Media LLC

The Narrator's Dilemma

Very well written book. Where others merely skim the surface, this one provides the details, necessary equations and delves into the discussions. That said, listening is ruined by the narrator's random guesswork (redundant, eh?) at pronouncing certain names, terms, and even common everyday language. Very annoying, distracting and, at times, misleading. Otherwise, his voice and pacing would have made him an effective choice.

Needs to be re-narrated

Someone who can pronounce the words used in this book should re-record it... Awful, awful mispronunciations abound!! Don’t buy this audio book.... Read the book—that would be my best recommendation !!

Book was good. Performance was distracting.

Hickox voice is good, but he needs a trainer to listen to his pronunciations and coach him.
Interesting and distracting pronunciations – Computing the Cosmos
Pierre-Simon Laplace = pronounces it as le “place” (long a)
Hans Albrecht Bethe = pronounces it beeth like teeth
John von Neuman = pronounces it von Newman
Bernard Riemann = pronounces it Rye-mun like pie-mun
Henrietta Leavitt = pronounces it leave-it
Yakov Zel’dovich = pronounces it zel-DO'-vitch – long “o” – may be OK? Just always heard it more like ZEL-du-vitch
Alan Guth = pronounces it Guth with the “u as in gus. should be gooth as in tooth
Radii = he pronounced raid-eye (multiple times)
Barred (as in a barred spiral galaxy) = he pronounced bared as in bare naked. Said several times then figured it out when the text mentioned the “bar” in a galactic arm
Axis –he pronounced as “access” throughout the entire book
Parabolic = he pronounced it par-a-BOW'-lik (might be OK, I just never heard it this way in math classes.)
Spectroscopy = pronounces it spectra-SCOPE'-y
Copernican = pronounces it cop(e)-er-KNEE'-can (long “o”, wrong syllable emphasized)
Argon = pronounces it ar-gun
Meson = pronounces it may-sun
Higg’s Boson = pronounces it boss-un
Let’s see we have proton, neutron, electron, photon then we have mesun and argun?
Analagous = pronounces it analojous – soft g
Causal = Misread it as "casual" throughout the entire book which does not quite convey the same meaning in physics
Precession (as the precession of the perihelion of Mercury = he read it as “precision”. Also does somewhat alter the meaning!
Condensate = he pronounced it con-DENSE'-ate
Magellanic = he pronounced it ma-GELL'-u-nik
Topology = he pronounced it tope-ology (long “o”) (not bad, I just never hear it this way)
Dodecahedron = he pronounced it dode-ka-HAY'-drun (long “o”)– missed the doe-decca part all together
Icosohedral = he pronounced it eye-CO'-so-drul, leaving out the “he” altogether
Cepheid = he pronounced it sef-ide (long “i”)
Chirality = he pronounced it chur-ality (“ch” as in church) should be ki-rality hard “k” and long “i”
Fermilab = he pronounced it fur-mu-lab
Fermi Gamma-ray Telescope= he pronounced it fur-my
Fullerene (as in Buckminsterfullerene) he pronounced it fuller-un (short u or schwa)

He left the “-“ sign off the exponent when reading about an extremely tiny value. Said “10 to the 36” instead it should have been “10 to the minus 36”. It might make a difference!

This was a case of an actor with no scientific knowledge reading something he had never heard of. Where are the directors on such a performance?

Excellent overview of the cosmos

The author does a great job of describing the cosmos (from the details of the formation of our solar system to the entire universe, and even some cover of multi-verses). The best part of the book comes in the later chapters where the author talks about the shortcomings in current theories such as inflation, dark energy, dark matter and the big bang.

The narrator did a good job in general but was a bit annoying in that he mispronounced at lot of words such as Riemann, Laplace, topology, hyperbolic, ...Apparently, the narrator is skilled at reading text of which he has little understanding. In any event, this was only a small irritation.

Well-Written, Easy to Understand

Well-written and well-read. Very understandable and easy to comprehend; clear English. Made for the layman.

Horrible narrator

Mispronounced even the most simple words. Hard to concentrate on the book with the absolutely butchered narration.

Excellent book, terrible reading

Stewart offers an excellent, non-technical survey of the mathematical bases of the historical development of cosmology and astrophysics. He concludes by making a carefully formulated case for his concerns about the current big bang orthodoxy.
Unfortunately, the narration is atrocious. Thanks to reviewer pinot and others below, I can refrain from enumerating the incessant mispronunciations, malapropisms and outright errors that hinder enjoyment of this audio book. I'll just mention that there's a significant recurring elliptic - ecliptic problem...

Eh.

This book is probably better to read than listen to. It requires flipping through illustrations which would be a lot easier if I wasn’t listening while I was working.

I will probably purchase the book to attempt to better enjoy it when I’m not working.

Oddly Underwhelming for Stewart

I think I expected something more akin to The Science of Interstellar, but it was less that and more a history of discoveries in our solar system, with the last third on the wider universe. Found it generally underwhelming, with little more to say than "math is very exact and where there are questions in the data scientists have made discoveries." Meh.

Excellent science rendered less so

Although I thoroughly enjoyed the physics and was impressed with the arguments and their logical presentation, the value was diminished by the reader's complete inexperience with the topic he was reading. Terrible mispronunciations were distracting and many of them were completely avoidable by not allowing unemployed liberal arts majors a suitable fee for reading hard science. Very disappointing to those of us who cringe upon hearing famous names butchered by ignorance of their significance outside the confines of this story and it's performance. Same for units, geometric shapes and technical constructions.