Gribbin, John

• Cosmic Coincidences (with Martin Rees)

  • While reading through a sample of popular science books for a freshman seminar class I'll soon be teaching (Fall 1996), I couldn't really avoid reading something by Gribbin, who is a very prolific author in the field, especially in the subjects of Physics and Astronomy. This is one of his older books, from 1986, but I got it because it touches on the Anthropic Principle, a philosphical idea that has always intrigued me. Because of its age and the rapid development of Astronomy and particularly Cosmology over the past 10 years, it is already somewhat out of date. Also, much of the book talks about basics of cosmology and current problems, such as the nature of dark matter, and these are discussed much better in other, more up-to-date books. The discussion about the "fine-tuning" argument is interesting, but I didn't find anything particularly fresh in Gribbin's treatment. Ten years ago, this would've been a good read, but not now.

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