Longlisted for the 2015 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing
Award
Short-listed for Physics World**'s** Book of the
Year
The Sunday Times (UK) Best Science Book of 2014
A Publishers Weekly Top 10 Science Book of Fall 2014
An NBC News Top Science and Tech Book of 2014
A Politics & Prose 2014 Staff Pick
In the sixteenth century, Nicolaus Copernicus dared to go against the
establishment by proposing that Earth rotates around the Sun. Having
demoted Earth from its unique position in the cosmos to one of
mediocrity, Copernicus set in motion a revolution in scientific thought.
This perspective has influenced our thinking for centuries. However,
recent evidence challenges the Copernican Principle, hinting that we do
in fact live in a special place, at a special time, as the product of a
chain of unlikely events. But can we be significant if the Sun is still
just one of a billion trillion stars in the observable universe? And
what if our universe is just one of a multitude of others-a single slice
of an infinity of parallel realities?
In The Copernicus Complex, the renowned astrophysicist Caleb Scharf
takes us on a scientific adventure, from tiny microbes within the Earth
to distant exoplanets, probability theory, and beyond, arguing that
there is a solution to this contradiction, a third way of viewing our
place in the cosmos, if we weigh the evidence properly. As Scharf
explains, we do occupy an unusual time in a 14-billion-year-old
universe, in a somewhat unusual type of solar system surrounded by an
ocean of unimaginable planetary diversity: hot Jupiters with orbits of
less than a day, planet-size rocks spinning around dead stars, and a
wealth of alien super-Earths. Yet life here is built from the most
common chemistry in the universe, and we are a snapshot taken from
billions of years of biological evolution. Bringing us to the cutting
edge of scientific discovery, Scharf shows how the answers to
fundamental questions of existence will come from embracing the
peculiarity of our circumstance without denying the Copernican vision.
With characteristic verve, Scharf uses the latest scientific findings to
reconsider where we stand in the balance between cosmic significance and
mediocrity, order and chaos. Presenting a compelling and bold view of
our true status, The Copernicus Complex proposes a way forward in the
ultimate quest: determining life's abundance, not just across this
universe but across all realities.
