Somewhere in the universe is an exact copy of you. But don't expect to meet up with your double any time soon. You would have to travel about 101028 metres. That's ten followed by a billion times a billion times a billion zeroes – far beyond the edge of the observable universe. But it gets stranger than that. There is more than one. There are infinite copies of you living out all possible lives. You may be surprised to learn that this is an unavoidable consequence of the standard model of our universe – the Big Bang theory incorporating a period of inflationary expansion.

Not weird enough for you? How about this: there is a number called Omega that is the answer to every question in the universe. It is infinitely long and there is no pattern to any of the digits. If you could discover the first few thousand digits of this number, you would have the answer to more mathematical problems than could ever be asked.

Still not weird enough? At the end of time, we will all be 'resurrected' by an advanced intelligence in a high-resolution computer simulation of the universe. We will awaken to rejoin our loved ones and live forever in a universe in which sorrow and pain are unknown. A universe that sounds very much like heaven.

Marcus Chown has compiled a remarkable collection of ideas from the fringes of science in The Never-Ending Days of Being Dead. These are probably not ideas that you have come across before. They are weird. Mind-bogglingly weird. That's what makes them so interesting. The book is a pleasure to read – Chown explains complex concepts with style and clarity. He revels in the extraordinary theories that he has uncovered, describing them with a gentle undercurrent of humour and a dash of irreverence.

These days, every bookshop has a collection of science titles available for general readership. Many are informative, some are entertaining, but inevitably, there is much repetition. Against that background, Chown's enjoyable and original book lives up to the intriguing promise of its title.