Battle of the Big Bang The New Tales of Our Cosmic Origins

A thrilling exploration of competing cosmological origin stories, comparing new scientific ideas that upend our very notions of space, time, and reality. By most popular accounts, the universe started with a bang some 13.8 billion years ago. But what happened before the Big Bang? Here prominent cosmologist Niayesh Afshordi and science communicator Phil Halper offer a tour of the peculiar possibilities: bouncing and cyclic universes, time loops, creations from nothing, multiverses, black hole births, string theories, and holograms. Along the way, they offer both a call for new physics and a riveting story of scientific debate. Incorporating Afshordi¿s cutting-edge research and insights from Halper¿s original interviews with scientists like Stephen Hawking, Roger Penrose, and Alan Guth, Battle of the Big Bang compares these models for the origin of our origins, showing each theory¿s strengths and weaknesses and explaining new attempts to test these theories. Battle of the Big Bang is a t