A User's Guide to the Universe: Surviving the Perils of Black Holes, Time Paradoxes, and Quantum Uncertainty - Hardcover

Explains serious and complex science, including string theory, quantum mechanics, parallel universes and the beginning of time in a conversational, easy-to-understand way and answers enduring questions about life on other planets and breaking the light-speed barrier.

"What a delightful book! It pulls no punches—or punch lines—in explaining all the fun topics in physics and cosmology. From quarks to quasars, from electrons to extraterrestrials—it's all here. Whether you are interested in how to build a time machine or a transporter, or would like to know why curiosity killed Schrödinger's Cat, you will find clear and memorably illustrated explanations. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the recent exciting developments in physics and astronomy."
—J. Richard Gott, Professor of Astrophysics, Princeton University, and author of Time Travel in Einstein's Universe

"I wish I'd had Goldberg and Blomquist as my physics teachers. Strangelets that grow until they strangle the world! Instructions for building an awesome teleportation device, and then transforming it into a super-awesome time machine! Speculations on the odds against our own existence! [and even deeper speculations on being in two places at once!] I'm going to recommend this book to my students, who are science journalists—and to any and all readers who want to have more fun in the universe."
—Jonathan Weiner, Professor, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism,and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Beak of the Finch

We don't like to mince words. If you have your heart set on building a faster-than-light drive or a time machine out of a DeLorean, knock yourself out. If you want to know whether these things are even possible and you like anthropomorphized fundamental particles, read A User's Guide to the Universe.

This plain-English, plain-hilarious handbook ushers you through all of the major discoveries of modern physics, from relativity to the Large Hadron Collider, without furrowing your brow even once. Put your mind at ease and jump into modern physics in a way you never imagined possible—comfortably. Now is your chance to impress people at cocktail parties with your insights into the world of quantum weirdness, time and space, the expanding universe, and much, much more.

Who knows? You might even learn something.