The Magic of Reality: How we Know what's Really True

The Magic of Reality: How we know what's really true

作者名銜一籮籮, 是演化生物學家, 牛津大學教授..., 最敢言的無神論者.

我沒有修理科, 此書可以給我一些科學與大自然發展的理論, 地球起源, 閃電, 彩虹形成原因...加上很多插圖, 我覺得很好, 適合門外漢的我. 







生物的演進不可以一蹴而就, 人不可以轉眼變成青蛙, 相反亦然. 以配種為例, 要繁殖腳長的青蛙, 就要繁殖很多代很多年才成.
他說人類的祖先可能來源自牠.







恐龍絕種是因為650萬年前殞石撞地球, 因為撞擊力太大, 比原子彈大得多, 引發地震, 山火, 海嘯, 灰塵及濃煙封住了地球多年, 沒有陽光, 植物不生...











這是一張真實的星空相片, 以天文望遠鏡拍攝. 每一個白色的小點就是似銀河系規模的星體. 這相片有幾百個銀河系, 幾百萬顆星星.

作者引述不同國家的傳說, 包括中國人的盤古開天闢地的神話.
此書說大爆炸是原因.

One of the great virtues of science is that scientists know when they don't know the answer to something. They cheerfully admit that they don't know. Cheerfully, because not knowing the answer is an exciting challenge to try to find it.
我同意.




這一段說人為什麼會滅亡. 未到太陽燃燒到最旺盛之時, 人類早已烤熟, 因為到時最熱可達400度.

 

The sun will become a red giant in about five million years’ time, which means it is pretty much in the middle of its life cycle at the moment. Long before then, our poor planet will have become much too hot to live on. In two billion years the sun will be 15% brighter than it is now, which means that the Earth will be like Venus is today. Nobody could live on Venus: the temperature there is over 400 degrees Celsius. But two billion years is a pretty long time, and humans will almost certainly be extinct long before then, so there will be nobody left to fry. Or maybe our technology will have advanced to the point where we can actually move the Earth out to a more comfortable orbit.



最後一章說奇蹟我覺得很精彩, 奇蹟有可能是偶然, 誤傳或真有其事. 但作者是科學家不信有奇蹟. 


中國古代人見到行雷, 相信天上有雷公, 將來, 科技發達, 會否也解析了一些現在無人明白的「奇蹟」?


如果你是教徒, 就不要對此書太認真了.