The Universe Within by Neil Shubin was an interesting book to read. Our bodies store within them cosmic history, and Shubin’s book explains a great story that contains research in astronomy, geology, paleontology, and genetics. With this research, Shubin shows just how the evolution of life on earth is all within the human body. The Universe Within tells the story of how everything that ever was, starting with the first trillionth of a second of creation, the making of hydrogen, helium, and lithium, and ending with continents and people.
The book is written in chronological order. It starts off with the Big Bang which happened 13.7 billion years ago. Then Neil Shubin introduces the importance of heavier atoms. He explained that humans are really made of star dust because the biochemistry of Earth’s organisms were formed in fusion reactions deep within the heart of stars. Shubin then goes on to talk about the importance of climate changes and continental drift.
Shubin takes us through a journey to understand our own bodies and evolution. Starting with fossils, he soared into the sky. The middle of his journey was in the stars, then brought it to explain what is within ourselves and what’s contained in our human bodies. Ending his exploration, Shubin came to discuss the topic of how our molecular composition explains almost all 14 billion years of the universe’s history.
When we learned about how the light of a distant star is direct evidence of conditions billions of years in the past, we were all amazed. Shubin explained how the human body was like a time capsule- holding clues to the distant past. I thought that the book was very informative and deepened our understanding of evolution. Going into the book, I expected it to be quite boring and very factual, but the author managed to make it an interesting read.
This book explained very well how the Earth and life on earth came to be how it is now. The Universe Within was well researched; as the reader, you became much more familiar with the process of evolution. This book was very informative, and since Neil Shubin had an engaging writing style, it was enjoyable as well. It was also written so that a broad audience could understand (it wasn’t directed towards just scientists).