Astrophysics for people in a hurry – Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Astrophysics for people in a hurry review

Astrophysics for people in a hurry was surprisingly a very quick read and very understandable. Because of the topic I was a bit apprehensive it would be a laborious read with terms and information that I would be unfamiliar with. However, it was absolutely enjoyable and something I simply consumed. I can’t recommend this book any higher.

Favorite Quote

We do not simply live in this universe. The universe lives within us.

Lessons learned

1. You need the luxury of time not spent on mere survival. Tyson writes these words as a reason why we can look at the stars and wonder about them. He makes the argument that one needs to have that privilege on time that isn’t spent on mere survival. I read the words and they leapt of the page to me. As I ponder them, I realized how most humans literally are living their lives just to survive and everything they do is simple motivated by survival. One of my new goals in life is to help as many people as I can to not have to live their lives that way.
2. The comic perspective is spiritual-even redemptive-but not religious. Religion is such a dirty word in our society and in the last chapter of this book Tyson eludes to the fact that the vastness of the universe can cause people to think if spirituality. As I read this book, I was constantly left thinking of the impossibilities of the universe. There are so many things that have to go right for life to be sustained on Earth and if one is changed we don’t have life on Earth.
3. We will never know. Tyson mentions in this book that the things we are observing at this time happened millions of years ago but because of the vastness of the universe we are just now able to observe the happenings. He states that future generations will have a different perspective of the universe because they will see a different universe. It applies to our culture now as we see life differently today because our cultures is constantly evolving.