Under The Microscope

IN THE BEGINNING -- the birth of the living universe, by John Gribbin; Penguin Books, 1994; 274 pp; $24.95; ISBN 0-14-017792-2

The central idea of this book is an extraordinary one -- that the whole universe is alive. John Gribbin, the acclaimed popular science writer, starts with an account of the Gaia hypothesis, which says that the Earth's ecosystem is itself a living entity, because plants, animals and the environment all interact with each other for mutual advantage and improvement. From this starting point, Gribbin makes a huge extrapolation to claim that our Galaxy, the Milky Way, also constitutes a living system. Stars are continuously being born and they die, but those that do so in the most favourable manner in turn produce offspring more abundantly and efficiently.

The story goes on. The universe is full of galaxies, which often devour other galaxies with collisions and mergers. Those that do this more efficiently survive and grow bigger. It is survival of the fittest on a grand and cosmic scale, both in time and space. And our universe may be just one universe of many, all closed off from each other by curved spacetime, as we live, in effect, inside a black hole. New universes are continuously being born (in Big Bangs) and die, each one, so Gribbin surmises, with slightly transformed laws of physics, each therefore with marginally different properties. And it is survival of the fittest which determines which are the most long-lived and the most suited for the support of other living entities such as ourselves.

There is a thin veil here between established fact and speculation, yet I found Gribbin's ideas stimulating and enjoyable, at least in the last two chapters, where the living galaxy and living universe concepts are elaborated. At times the discussion may seem a little far-fetched, and so much depends on semantics: what does one mean by "alive"? Is a sufficient criterion of being alive no more than the ability to interact with the environment and other living entities for mutual benefit?

The first seven chapters are a more or less standard regurgitation of current knowledge in astronomy with a sprinkling of evolutionary biology, especially in cosmology and genetics. These may well be an essential introduction to the ideas that follow, but there are many other popular science texts that treat the same material more lucidly and concisely. My advice is to skip quickly through chapters one to seven and enjoy the bold speculation of chapters 8 and 9. But do so with an open, even skeptical mind!

John Hearnshaw is in Canterbury University's Department of Physics and Astronomy.

John Hearnshaw is Professor of Astronomy at the University of Canterbury and Principal Investigator for the planet search programme of the MOA project.