David Baker tells the story of the universe from when it was a fraction of an atom and speculates on futures from the possible to the preposterous.
Remember the “why” game? Most children discover it during their intensive questioning phase. They ask “why is something as it is?” You answer only to be instantly asked “why?” again. That’s basically it. After a few rounds it has veered into an existential nightmare for you, while the child has long-since stopped listening and is there only to ride the sadistic thrill at your facial rictus as you plumb the void for meaning.
David Baker synthesises cosmology, biology, archaeology and history in The Shortest History of the World.At first, I was cautious. The bookshelves are riddled with science material bent on convincing readers that science is really cool, actually. But nothing is less cool than trying to be. Small mercy then that, as far as Dr Baker, who holds the world’s first PhD in Big History, is concerned, you can take it or leave it. And take it I did.
The universe’s arc is not linear but leaps suddenly when some long-term accumulation tips into a feedback loop. The advent of sex is one. Before it, asexual replication relied on mutation for genetic diversity. This was very slow because errors in DNA replication were so astoundingly rare. But once diversity relied on eros rather than errors, offspring became a mix of inherited traits. Greater variation meant more opportunity for advantage and so switched on the evolutionary afterburners.
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