Eight Improbable Possibilities: The Mystery of the Moon, and Other Implausible Scientific Truths

Echoing Sherlock Holmes’ famous dictum, John Gribbin tells us: ‘Onceyou have eliminated the impossible, whatever is left, however improbable, is certainlypossible, in the light of present scientific knowledge.’ With that in mind, in his sequel to the hugely popularSix Impossible ThingsandSeven Pillars of Science, Gribbin turns his attention to some of the mind-bendingly improbable truths of science. For example:

We know that the Universe had a beginning, and when it was - and also that the expansion of the Universe is speeding up. We can detect ripples in spacethat are one ten-thousandth the width of a proton,made by colliding black holes billions of light years from Earth.

And, most importantly from our perspective, all complex life on Earth today is descended from a single cell- butwithout the stabilising influence of the Moon, life forms like us could never have evolved.