The Hidden Lives of Lab Animals: A Vet's Vision for a More Humane Future
Post

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

By most popular accounts, the universe started with a bang some 13.8 billion years ago. But what happened before the Big Bang? And how do we know it happened at all? 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 insights from Afshordi’s cutting-edge research and 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 notions. Battle of the Big Bang is a tale of rivalries and intrigue, of clashes of ideas that have raged from Greek antiquity to the present day over whether the universe is eternal or had a beginning, whether it is unique or one of many. But most of all, Afshordi and Halper show that this search is filled with wonder, discovery, and community–all essential for remembering a forgotten cosmic past.

More Adult, Non-Juvenile Books

  • When Fliss, the eccentric grown daughter of the powerful Fitzmaurice clan, is found dead on beach in Bali, what seems like a tragic accident stirs more suspicion than closure for those who’ve traded favors with—and within—her family for decades.

  • Eskimo and white culture collide in this national bestselling novel of life in the contemporary Alaskan wilderness.

  • In Our Migrant Souls, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Héctor Tobar offers a profound exploration of Latino identity in contemporary America. He addresses the historical and social forces shaping this identity while giving voice to the frustrations and aspirations of young Latinos, who have navigated a landscape marked by division and misunderstanding.

    Read More about "Our Migrant Souls"...

  • The origins of natural history as a discipline, showing how early illustrated treatises reflected a vibrant exchange between artists and naturalists that contributed to the growth of natural science and sparked public fascination with the animal kingdom.