My Favorite Universe

Name: My Favorite Universe
SKU: 57854
Availability: InStock

4.1 | 3 ratings

Price: 14.26

Last update: 11-02-2024

About this item

What forces molded the universe? Are those forces still at work, removing, changing, or adding heavenly bodies even as we gaze upward? Will humanity, and Earth itself, one day be gone? Are we alone?

In an era when science journalism is perhaps more thorough and ambitious than ever before, fascinating explorations of questions like these seem available to us almost every day - provided we have a working understanding of the scientific theories on which they're based. Discover the answers to these and other startling questions about the cosmos with My Favorite Universe, a spirited and intellectually engaging journey through the cosmos and its history, from before the big bang to the likely ways in which Earth, and perhaps the entire universe, might end.

In this lecture series, Professor Neil deGrasse Tyson, the astrophysicist who directs the nation's most famous planetarium, makes that understanding available to anyone. Explore how black holes are formed, how asteroids move through space, why the odds seem overwhelmingly in favor of extraterrestrial life, and much more. With the foundation provided by this magnificent course, the realities of the universe will be revealed in stark - and often violent - beauty.

Elisabeth Carey

A fascinating tour of our universe

Reviewed in the United States on August 27, 2017

Neil deGrasse Tyson delivers twelve lectures on what makes our universe so fascinating, and in some ways so different from what we see with our naked eyes and common sense. He covers the probable origins of the universe, why things are, beyond a certain size, mostly round, the age of the universe, the discovery of planets outside our solar system, whether we're likely to find intelligent life, and the probable death of the universe, along with other topics that are more fascinating than we could have guessed.

And of course, Dr. Tyson is much more fascinating, educational, and entertaining on these topics than a mere fascinated listener can be. Go get a copy of this audio book and listen to it instead of reading what I have to say about it.

I bought this audiobook.

Piaw Na

Watch Cosmos instead

Reviewed in the United States on October 18, 2017

My Favorite Universe is Neil deGrasee Tyson's collection of essays (turned into lectures by The Teaching Company) that were originally columns from a magazine. It's available as a video download or audio only, and I picked up the audio only version during a sale.

Apparently, the video includes a lot of pictures that would be missing when you only audit the lectures, which is a pity. On the other hand, if you've watched Cosmos, you probably have seen similar imagery.

The huge difference between Cosmos and this lecture series is that Cosmos is much better written. Tyson has a lecture style that frequently pauses (occasionally I would check to see if my phone had stopped playing audio, only to discover that he was simply pausing), and he likes to repeat words for emphasis. None of those verbal tics showed up in Cosmos, which meant that better editing and scripting made the other title much better viewing and listening.

Overall, the show covers many astrophysics topics but is subject to a bit too much hyperbole from Tyson. I didn't think it was a complete waste of time, but I think it could have been much better written and edited, and make its key points in much less time and with less repetition. Go watch Cosmos instead.

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