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Before The Big Bang

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Member Reviews

Thanks to Mariner Books and NetGalley for the chance to read and review Laura Mersini-Houghton's 'Before the Big Bang.'

It took me much longer to read and review this than I expected. Much longer.

What was there before the Big Bang is a question that's been on my mind for years. Where was this infinitesimally small but unimaginably dense particle of matter existing, what was it 'floating in'? So I suppose an answer was never going to be easy to comprehend if one even exists. I had to go very slowly with this book because, although it's 'popular' science and a large part memoir, it's still the theoretical physics of the universe so it was never going to be easy.

Did I find 'the' answer or at least 'an' answer? I'm not sure. If we're part of a multi-universe paradigm then the same question pertains - where did those universes come from and in what do they 'live'? I suspect going down too far that path leads to either insanity or religion and I want no part of either.

Fascinating book though and one I'll probably keep dipping back into to try and understand better what I've read.

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BEFORE THE BIG BANG

Laura Mersini-Houghton’s Before the Big Bang: The Origin of the Universe and What Lies Beyond tackles some of the more surprising discoveries about our universe. Yet where the book itself is concerned, perhaps the most unexpected thing about it is how the science is presented: woven around her own life story, organized alongside autobiographical vignettes to help readers appreciate the author’s own unlikely journey into theoretical physics.

Readers expecting a straightforward science book may find this comes from left field. As a framing device it works to the extent that it puts forth a coherent narrative about a person’s expanding and maturing perspective about the universe. That said, as a scaffolding for understanding the science that’s at the core of the book, a case could be made that a more conventional approach would be more accessible to readers.

Nonetheless, as a science book Before the Big Bang stands out in its discussion of quantum physics and how the latter lays the groundwork for the quantum landscape multiverse theory. It’s indubitably fascinating stuff, and given that Mersini-Houghton was among the originators of the theory—substantial predictions of which have since been confirmed empirically—it’s no surprise that the chapters that deal with the topic are among the strongest in the book.

It is perhaps equally remarkable and difficult to consider not just how our universe came to be but also how likely it is that there exist many other universes across multidimensional spacetime. This is at the core of Mersini-Houghton’s research, a simplified version of which is presented in Before the Big Bang. In a sense, such would not have been possible had members of the scientific establishment not moved on from the search for a “unified theory of everything,” or absent breakthroughs in quantum physics and the development of technologies that made it possible to better observe cosmological phenomena.

Ultimately, Before the Big Bang is still more a science book than memoir, and it makes very good work not just of delving into a matter as complex as how the universe came to be, but also of the process of debate and discovery that lies at the root of all science.

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Cosmos and its science is something that has always been abstract to me. Add to it physics and I´m telling you, I am lost like a little child in a shopping mall. I've chosen this book because I don´t want to be this child anymore. Did it help? I´d rather not answer...
I really like the personal part, where we follow the author from her childhood in communist Albany to her adult life as a scientist in USA. I can see a potential for a separate novel, based on the author's life

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This is part memoir impart theoretical physics. She tells a story and then leads into why that made her think of… Only not every story lead to the main point and none of it was commentary all before the big bang. She believes in multi-verses and I can’t say I am smart enough to disagree with her. I just wish the personal stories would have been complete thoughts and stories and her theories more expound on. Having said that I love learning about peoples life in other countries and her stories of childhood in Albania really fed that desire. If I am being asked if I would recommend this book… Definitely. As most of physics is theoretical and this is just another theory. I was given this book by neck Alley and I am leaving this review voluntarily please forgive any errors as I am blind and dictate my review but all opinions are definitely my own.

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An interesting deep dive into the latest in cosmology, at least from the perspective of physicist Laura Mersini-Houghton, with a strong emphasis on multiverse theory. Mersini-Houghton has claimed to have demonstrated mathematically that we live in a multiverse, and provides some interesting evidence to that end (relying on quantum and string theory and certain observations of the cosmic microwave background), but as always when you get into quantum physics it remains a little opaque to me.

The book is really about 70% physics, 30% memoir, relating her childhood and education in Communist-dominated Albania before emigrating to the United States. The memoir-y parts are interesting, largely serving to explain why she was drawn to ideas outside the current mainstream. They do sometimes waver in importance, though -- one moment stands out when she begins a section talking about how she'd spend every weekend at a bookstore she liked, reading everything except physics, because physics was for weeknights; physics such as [.... begins discussing some physics idea]. I kept waiting for the bookstore anecdote to circle back around and be relevant to her understanding of that idea, but it never happened. Odd.

I do want to spend a moment discussing the title, which I suspect was a "suggestion" by the publisher to grab eyeballs, since the vast majority of the book is spent discussing the state of the singularity at the moment of the Big Bang and what happened immediately after, and seems entirely unconcerned with what happened "before" that (if such a concept can even be meaningful). The one bit of discussion of a possible "before" comes not from Mersini-Houghton's own work but from a colleague, and I bring it up primarily because it's probably the most arresting and exciting idea in the whole book, at least to me. Consider the initial singularity that became our universe as a constant high-energy region of uniform space, infinitely compressed; as the universe expands and entropy increases, the universe will eventually become a massive expanse of uniform, low-energy space -- the famed "heat death of the universe." The book points out that, mathematically, this is no different than the uniform high-energy region, just on a vastly different scale, setting up the idea that the "heat-dead" universe could serve as a singularity preceding a subsequent Big Bang for a new universe, orders of magnitude larger. Thus it posits not only a quantum, parallel multiverse, but a multiverse of sequential universes on and on forever. I find that concept enchanting.

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This was a fascinating read about the beginnings of our universe and the theory that our universe is just one amongst a multitude of universes which sit upon a quantum landscape. The author's mathematical work which provides support to the multiverse theory and was recently confirmed by the Planck satellite experiment.

Even if you don't have a strong science background, the book is very comprehensible and is highly recommended for anyone.

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Thomas Samuel Kuhn is arguably the most influential scientific philosopher to have lived in the twentieth century. Kuhn upended received wisdom permeating scientific thinking by introducing the notion of a paradigm shift. According to him, the progress of scientific thought is a perpetual revolution, a revolt even, driven by the unrelenting force of paradigms. Science initially progresses on entrenched assumptions that is the prerogative of a particular scientific community. A slight shift takes place when one/few intrepid mind/s detect an ‘anomaly’ in the rooted assumptions. This anomaly then assumes momentum and soon becomes a dogmatic assumption itself till such time it is in turn uprooted by a courageous anomaly. This process continues in perpetuity.

A commonly accepted paradigm in the astronomy is the Big Bang Theory and the origin of the universe. Scientists have believed, and continue to believe that the universe originated from a singularity that began expanding with the Big Bang. If there was to be an absence of this singularity –the Big Bang may never have happened. This paradigm was almost accepted as the universal truth. Until along came a brilliant brain that thrived on cigarettes, classical music and cosmology – not necessarily in that order.

Laura Mersini-Houghton never considered any challenge to be insurmountable, let alone one that stemmed from cosmology. No stranger to setbacks, her initial upbringing in the persecutorial communist regime in Albania, was nothing short of an existential crisis. The daughter of a Professor of Econometrics (who was repeatedly exiled for his knowledge – an invitation from Oxford University to discuss a new algorithm devised by him being one reason for a lengthy bout of banishment) and an employee at the Albanian League of Writers & Artists, Laura was influenced both personally and professionally by her astute parents.

Goaded by a set of ever encouraging parents, Laura became the first Albanian to get a Fulbright scholarship and found herself making a long and lonely journey that had as its destination, the University of Maryland. After completing her M.Sc., she headed to the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee to pursue her Ph.D. in theoretical physics. Her main motivation to choose theoretical/quantum physics was a gnawing problem which seemed totally bereft of solutions. British mathematical physicist and Nobel Laureate Roger Penrose in collaboration with one of the greatest ever cosmologists, Stephen Hawking had birthed what was popularly known as the singularity theorem. This theorem implied that scientists could never explore the actual moment of the Universe’s creation because absolutely nothing existed before creation.

For her dissertation, Laura could either opt to do research toeing the conventional line or she could attempt to buck the traditional trend. However, bucking the trend could have disastrous consequences as the unfortunate experience of the mercurial theoretical physicist Hugh Everett III illustrated. In 1957, Everett defended his dissertation titled ‘On the foundations of Quantum Mechanics’ at Princeton and received his PhD. However, Everett’s brilliant thesis contradicted the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics, one of whose pioneers Niels Bohr happened to be the mentor of Everett’s PhD advisor, John Archibald Wheeler. Later, in 1959, Wheeler invited Everett to meet Niels Bohr. The meeting, however, was an unmitigated disaster. Everett’s ‘relative-state theory’, now known as the ‘many worlds theory’, was rejected by Bohr, and subsequently, the entire Physics community. Everett himself described the meeting as “hell.” Wheeler then withdrew from Everett’s theory personally, not wanting his name associated with it, and even publicly denounced it after Everett’s death.

Laura knew the consequences of being ‘bold’. But the girl who watched many of her friends climb the walls of various embassies in Tirana to seek asylum abroad, but stood resolute in her resolve to complete her education was built to last. For her dissertation, she presented the theory of the origin of the universe from the multiverse, and made a series of predictions, including The Giant Void, that was able to test her theory. A sudden burst of epiphany assailed Laura while she was sipping coffee in a café. Immediately she wrote down the edifice constituting her flash of thinking: ‘Quantum mechanism on the landscape of String Theory’. The rest as the cliché goes, was indeed history.

In an epochal study, undertaken in tandem with Rich Holman of Carnegie Mellon University, Laura discovered that infant universes that started at very high energies were the most likely universes to be produced out of a quantum landscape. Thrillingly, the origins of the universe could be calculated and derived! Her predictions were successfully tested by the Planck satellite experiment.

When Laura’s father became eligible as the top ranked student in his class for a scholarship to study in Moscow, the medal of honour was snatched away just as it was about to be placed around his neck, by an influential member of the Albanian Communist Party who had some grouse with the student’s family and their libertarian values. That regret never left Nexhat Mersini. However, his heart would have filled with unbridled filial pride to see his beloved daughter progress from stealthily & surreptitiously poring over banned Western literature at the library of Albanian League of Writers and Artists, to sitting next to Roger Penrose in a Turkish restaurant that was just about to close for the night and hold forth on the principles of cosmology deep after midnight!

The autobiography of this stellar Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, might just be a paradigm waiting to be embraced, adulated, supplemented or even supplanted by another intrepid mind in future, another Laura Messini perhaps!

(Before the Big Bang: The Origin of the Universe and What Lies Beyond by Laura Mersini-Houghton is published by Mariner Books and will be available for sale beginning 19th July 2022. Thank you Net Galley for the Advance Reviewer Copy).

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An Albanian-American physicist, Mersini-Houghton’s research interests lie in the direction of that biggest of Big Questions: how did the universe come to be? Committed to taking on ideas no matter their popularity or “respectability” in the physics community, she boldly explores ideas that inevitably lead to the ultimate expression of the Copernican principle: the multiverse, where ours is but one of many, even infinitely many, universes.

Scientists have traditionally assumed and asserted that there is only one, singular, unique universe, appealing in its simplicity and predictability and a pleasing wholeness. It also has the appeal of authority, as its impeccable pedigree includes Plato and Einstein. And the multiverse, the concept of there being more than one universe, can seem to be too complicating, too much like “giving up” looking for THE truth in favor of a menagerie of truthS. A multiverse also seems untestable and unobservable a hypothesis, thus making it unscientific by definition. To those convinced that this is the case, the various multiverse hypotheses are nothing more than philosophical fairy-stories without any connection to the advancement of scientific knowledge, and, indeed, may be a distraction leading physics astray into a morass of supposition and an end to actual knowledge.

Mersini-Houghton, and others in the field, disagree. They think the multiverse a productive line of research, and, moreover, one that can be tested and observed, if indirectly. For one thing, the dogma of a singular universe makes the universe feel like some kind of fluke. And Mersini-Houghton is intensely against any dogma of any kind, and finds it especially antithetical to the spirit of science where one must go where ideas and evidence takes you. Mersini-Houghton and her collaborators have thus combined string theory and quantum theory and inflationary theory to describe a mechanism by which a multiverse arises, one that ensures that a universe like ours is a likely outcome rather than an almost inexplicably unlikely fluke. Using analyses of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation, they also believe that they have observational evidence for this multiverse, or at least observational evidence suggestive of this multiverse that will, with further study, yield such more concrete proof.

But while I don’t claim to be anything approaching a physicist, as an amateur cosmology enthusiast, and one that both shares Mersini-Houghton’s gimlet eye at the “single-universe hypothesis” (as she calls it), but who also takes multiverse critics arguments about multiverse hypotheses seriously, I have to say that I find many of her claims perhaps more confidently asserted than is warranted. Her work rests on the twin pillars of string theory and the many-worlds interpretation of quantum theory, a foundation whose own stability is still questionable. String theory is far, far from proved; the many-worlds interpretation of quantum theory is just that, an interpretation, and though increasingly popular, it is not as of yet shown to be the correct interpretation. Even in discussing her and her collaborators’ evaluation of the cosmic background radiation, my understanding is that her confidence in their showing what she thinks they are showing is not as undeniable as she implies.

But these criticisms aside, I highly recommend this book for the science reader. There is a clarity and fluency in her writing that is rare in books of this nature, even very good ones. Honestly, it is simply is a pleasure to read. Mersini-Houghton has a fascinating biography, growing up in the repression of Hoxha’s Albania, and her account of her extraordinary father and her pathway to Chapel Hill is really the most fascinating part of the book, and directly tied to the scientific journey she has taken. I would also like to positively note the illustrations in the book. Clear, bold lines make them striking and easy to process. Many books in this genre skimp on the illustrations to their detriment.

In short, read this book.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4639925852

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This is a terrific book on the origins of our universe (as well as others) interspersed with the author’s recollections of her Albanian childhood and her father’s persecution by Communist authorities. For a layman like me, the complex physics and math can be daunting (I got about 2/3 of everything), but the author provides many simple analogies to facilitate understanding. If you are interested in the universe and the latest theories on its origin, this is a book for you.

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I read a lot of cosmology and astrophysics books as the come out, so I don't expect to get new nuggets of information each and every time. This was a pleasant exception as Mersini dropped three or four of them once she finally got going. I phrase it that way since there was a lot of biographical material in the first half, especially around her growing up in Albania. Once she gets past that and past the general science, it's multiverse time!

I've seen the multiverse concept covered elsewhere so i excepted Mersini to come from a similar place and flesh it out She did just that, showing that the 10^600 solutions of M Theory allow for a sufficient number of possible universes and why those that look like ours can and do succeed. She does away with the anthropic principle (I'm OK with a soft version that allows us to place constrains on unknowns) and she discusses how the WMAP data supports multiple predictions she and her partner worked out based on the math alone.

I was happy enough by the end that I was OK with the biographical material that came with the package. I also liked how her epilogue gave the prehistory from early Greece to Einstein, rather than placing that up front. What did it miss? I think it needed more images, both data and images, and I wouldn't mind a little of the math. I know it's very advanced, but just show it to us and tell us what it says without necessarily saying how it says it - otherwise a lot of the statements are really just handwaving and have to be taken on faith (which, honestly, they do).

Bottom line, it's amazing that so much can be deduced from pointing advanced telescopes at every portion of the sky and analyzing the results implied by light we can't even say. This is as good a place as any to jump into the field, and if you like this there's plenty more what it came from.

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