THIS is not a book to tackle lightly. On the Shores of the Unknown is a lively appreciation of the wonder and weirdness that the universe contains. You will need determination to follow Joseph Silk’s history step by sober step to the end. It needs at least some acquaintance with big bang theory, with its cosmic microwave background.
An ordinary reader might be encouraged to continue by frequently coming across astonishing facts, both large and small. For example: there are millions of galaxies; the mass of a proton is precisely 1836 times that of an electron; a neutron is 0.14…
