What happened 'in the beginning' fifteen billion years ago? Is our Universe only one of its kind or are there others? Is it just a coincidence that life evolved on Earth?

Martin Rees is Professor of Astronomy at Cambridge University and an internationally renwoned cosmologist. John Gribbin is an award-winning science writer. Together they have written a stunning new book that explores the improbable chain of cosmic events that led to intelligent life on Earth.

Scientists cannot explain the distributioin of galaxies - and the voids between them - without concluding that at least ninety per cent of the Universe consists of so-called 'dark matter'. In Cosmic Coincidences, John Gribbin and Martin Rees give us the most comprehensive and popular treatment to date of the leading theories and latest advances in understadning the nature of dark matter, the controlling force in the dynamics, structure, and eventual fate of the Universe.