“Our Mathematical Universe” by the cosmologist Max Tegmark.

https://www.amazon.com/Our-Mathematical-Universe-Ultimate-Re...

If anyone is interested in dark matter and dark energy I recommend this book: https://www.amazon.com/Our-Mathematical-Universe-Ultimate-Re...

Written by this guy http://web.mit.edu/physics/people/faculty/tegmark_max.html is does a fantastic job of going from really simple concepts/experiments to blowing your mind.

> I wonder sometimes if you could make a religion out of all this

https://www.amazon.com/Our-Mathematical-Universe-Ultimate-Re...

Certainly some do. Max Tegmark would be an example[1]. He posts a sort of "all possible universes with all possible laws". (I think "possible" in this context roughly means mathematically consistent.)

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Our-Mathematical-Universe-Ultimate-Re...

- Our Mathematical Universe (http://www.amazon.com/Our-Mathematical-Universe-Ultimate-Rea...)

- The Martian (http://www.amazon.com/The-Martian-Novel-Andy-Weir-ebook/dp/B...)

- Zero to One (http://www.amazon.com/Zero-One-Notes-Startups-Future/dp/0804...)

- The Hard Thing About Hard Things (http://www.amazon.com/The-Hard-Thing-About-Things/dp/0062273...)

When I became interested in modern physics theories of both quantum and universe level, I found the following book [0] by Max Tegmark to have very good explanations regarding origin and nature of the universe, quantum mechanics, and just interesting stories / facts from the life of physicists.

[0] http://www.amazon.com/Our-Mathematical-Universe-Ultimate-Rea...