We know the universe had a beginning. But what happens at the end of the story?

With lively wit and wry humour, astrophysicist Katie Mack takes us on a mind-bending tour through each of the cosmos' possible finales: the Big Crunch, Heat Death, Vacuum Decay, the Big Rip and the Bounce. Guiding us through major concepts in quantum mechanics, cosmology, string theory and much more, she describes how small tweaks to our incomplete understanding of reality can result in starkly different futures. Our universe could collapse in upon itself, or rip itself apart, or even - in the next five minutes - succumb to an inescapable expanding bubble of doom.

This captivating story of cosmic escapism examines a mesmerizing yet unfamiliar physics landscape while sharing the excitement a leading astrophysicist feels when thinking about the universe and our place in it. Amid stellar explosions and bouncing universes, Mack shows that even though we puny humans have no chance of changing how it all ends, we can at least begin to understand it.

The End of Everything is a wildly fun, surprisingly upbeat ride to the farthest reaches of all that we know.

我们都知道宇宙有开端，但结局会发生什么呢？

天体物理学家凯蒂·麦克（Katie Mack）用活泼的机智和诙谐的幽默，带领我们参观了宇宙中每个可能的结局：大紧缩、热死亡、真空衰变、大裂变和反弹。她引导我们了解量子力学、宇宙学、弦理论等方面的主要概念，描述了我们对现实的理解如何导致截然不同的未来。我们的宇宙可能会自我坍塌，或者自我撕裂，甚至-在接下来的5分钟内屈服于一个不可避免的膨胀的厄运泡沫中。

这个迷人的宇宙终结故事考察了一个令人着迷而又陌生的物理景观，同时分享了一位领先的天体物理学家在思考宇宙和我们在其中的位置时的兴奋之情。在恒星爆炸和弹跳的宇宙中，麦克表明，尽管我们这些弱小的人类没有机会改变这一切的结局，但我们至少可以开始了解它。

本书是一部疯狂有趣、令人惊讶的欢快旅程，通往我们所知道的最远处。