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Before the Big Bang: The Prehistory of Our Universe

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By the time I reached the last page of this book, I just wanted to go to Arizona, drive into the desert and marvel at the glory of the night sky.

The title is a bit misleading in implying a discussion of "the prehistory of our universe" when, in fact, the presentation is about the various contemporary theories attempting to explain what existed before the Big Bang - if, of course, there was a Big Bang. Some of the theories postulate otherwise.

Clegg, who has a physics degree, writes easily of the theories of the universe beginning with the dawn of recorded history. The earlier theories, involving gods and the like, were easier to digest, though Clegg makes an exception for the Egyptians who managed to imbue the Sun with a number of different gods. The Buddhists are given short shrift for not involving a pantheon of deities, but instead adopting a "because it's there" approach. Clegg moves on to describe the earliest efforts to determine the size of the universe. The history of humankind and its quest to determine the nature of the universe is fascinating and Clegg does well at describing the search for answers.

By the time we come to the recent era, the last three centuries or so, the reader has a firm grasp of where we were in our understanding and how we got there.

The explosion of scientific knowledge in the Western world began in earnest in the 17th Century and has not slowed. Clegg describes each of the giants upon whose shoulders the next giant stood; thus Bacon and Newton were the precursors for Einstein. Clegg employs an interesting device here, though I am not sure if it is of his own design or a natural result of explaining the increasing knowledge of the universe. Whichever it is, it works. By the time Clegg begins to seriously address the question of what existed before the Big Bang, the reader has been given a short, but thorough, course in cosmology. The education is needed as Clegg begins his census of modern thinking on the origins of the universe and, more to the point of the title, what came before.

Clegg, by the way, never tells us. In that, the title is a bit misleading.

Instead Clegg offers an exposition of the various contending theories - and while all of them are breathtakingly incomprehensible in toto, some are more incomprehensible than others!

My brain is still spinning with David Bohm's conception of the universe as a hologram: "there are no individual particles; everything is part of the same thing". We are here, but we are there as well and we aren't here at all, so to speak, all depending on vantage point.

In just under 300 pages, Clegg deftly summarizes our understanding of the universe as it evolved over the past several thousand years. Today about a half-dozen major theories of the origin of the universe and explanations of what went before contend for general acceptance within the scientific community. As Clegg makes clear, none of the existing theories are likely to gain universal acceptance and the question of what existed "before the Big Bang" will remain unanswered (and perhaps unanswerable).

In the interim, read Clegg's "Before the Big Bang: The Prehistory of Our Universe" and you'll have a pretty good idea of what scientists yesterday and today thought and believed. This is good stuff, but be forewarned that there are numerous places that may required several readings in order to understand the theory being described.

Jerry

Clegg combines a history of myth ("a story with a purpose") and science as they struggle to come to terms with creation. His lively narrative strives by frequent metaphor and short chapters to convey an incredibly difficult topic. I never thought I'd be able to understand such astrophysical speculation based on quantum theory and thought-experiments, but thanks to Clegg's clarity, I could, more or less.

Parts of this study will inevitably cause the most nimble mind to quail, given models based on our universe being a 2-d holographic projection into 3-d for us to observe, or a "bit-it" parallel that imagines information itself becoming the building blocks of a universe constructed as we learn to conceive it, or one that is a "multiple universe" one based on the "choices" that a light wave may "make" as we watch it and try to measure it. Not to be confused with multiverses!

That Clegg shows us how this all came to be in the minds of astronomers over the centuries, especially most recently as satellites and telescopes begin to combine with CERN to hint at the previously unimaginable, is an achievement. He tells in a dozen relatively snappy chapters the pre-history of the theories that led to the Big Bang, and then the fudge-factor of lambda added by Einstein as he resisted the quantum mechanics that led to the breakthroughs that eventually eroded the Steady State Fred Hoyle theory in favor of the Big Bang.

Yet, the holes punched in to this model by math and logic, for some astronomers, have then whittled away even this paradigm. "Groundhog Universes" along the Big Crumple, the dodahecadron-shaped possibility of a universe that eludes our whole perception due to our inability to "see" some of its directions, may indicate Clegg's favorite model's replacement of the Big Bang with the Steinhardt-Turok "bouncing branes" set-up. See more about this elsewhere, but this may show another universe a millimeter away from ours with enough ripples in the space-time fabric to allow for gravitational anamolies and a sort of mirror-pattern that shows perhaps a universe previous to the creation of our own.

Such ideas are hard to sum up, but Clegg does his best. This book may often retell the familiar and he has written often on the history of astronomy; he may repeat much, taking about two-thirds of the book to get to where I figured, with the Big Crumple, he'd have arrived far earlier, but much ground for him is smoothed out and worked over before he gets to the latest suppositions. This does slow the book down markedly, but aimed at non-scientists such as myself, such elaboration may be necessary given the immense difficulty of laying out in comprehensible terms (no formulae here) the research of experts.

I do think he gave short shrift to Buddhist cosmological conceptions early on when dismissing these as possible patterns of early thinkers, and he could have also slowed down to dig deeper into the plasma explanations that account for a significant foundation for the multi-dimensional membranes. And, I aver that Clegg needed to flesh out the "universe in a black hole" theory more fully; some of his major points get not lost in the cosmic shuffle of "what-ifs," but they do flash by for the less-skilled layman's eye rather quickly and can be missed too easily.

All in all, a lively primer that as a non-scientist I found answered many of my questions about a question that always fascinated me, and that I did not know had so many analogues. Others more versed in astrophysics may well contend with the devils in the details; to me on the outside, I think Clegg keeps his own biases clear and allows for the chance that as with all scientific theories, nobody can cling to one explanation for such a vast and nearly unprovable subject. The sheer headiness of the glimmer that we can see past our own universe's beginnings is itself cause for the most rarified delight. Clegg keeps his sense of humor, his balance between rigor and skepticism, and his own sense of wonder shows. I recommend this book and thank him for his considerable efforts.

How did we come to be here?

This question is so basic and primal it's been addressed not only by all the world's religions but by science as long as science has been around.

In this short accessible book Brian Clegg reveals that while we still don't know for sure where we came from...and therefore what preceded the Big Bang...we do have some interesting speculations:

1) String theory could be right and our reality is just a subset of a larger reality we develop but some of the laws of physics. In this view, the ultimate sub-atomic particles...strings...are tethered to membranes that periodically move and sway like so many sheets of paper in a ream. They're next to each other but not connected because when they connect new big bangs are produced and along with them a reorienting of the laws of physics.

2) Our universe is an imaginary one concocted not from some set of physical laws but from the imaginative perspective of the observer. In this view, referred to as solopsism, the observer litterally conjurs a world into being.

3) Our universe is holographic and like the holograms that can be purchased in a novelty shop the apparent dimensionality is only an illusion...albeit, as Einstein might have said, a subbornly persistent one.

4) Our universe creates itself. In this view, hypothesized by J Richard Gott, each Black Hole in our universe is the porthole to a Big Bang in another universe. Owing to the unique nature of how physics laws break down in a Black Hole, according to Gott, it's possible that one of these Big Bangs is actually the porthole to our own universe meaning the universe actually created itself.

Though theory 4 is my favorite because it actually gives us an answer which takes us before the beginning (as opposed to the others which merely move the question back another step), Clegg favors theory one, string theory.

But, and owing to Clegg's candor this comes through very strongly in this book, we still don't know what our universe's prehistory is and much of what we speculate is not materially closer to reality than the religious speculations of forefathers which of course still leaves us asking the question:

How did we come to be here?

When one touches on ANY universe theory or question of ANY deepness it goes into the "rabbit hole" - quantum mechanics.It take an experience communicator to put the reader in this universe "WORLD". Gary Zukav's, The Dancing Wu Li Masters is another good example of this kind of writing. Now it's Brian Clegg's, Before The Big Bang, that complements it as well as updates it.
Neils Bohr, the quintessential master of the quantum world, "Anyone who says he understands quantum mechanics is a Damn Liar!". Richard Feynman, who many consider the greatest physicist, "The theory of quantum electrodyamics describes Nature as aburd from the point of view as common sense. And it agreees fully with experiment. So I hope you can accept Nature as She is - Absurd."
The point being that in reading this fine work you'll be going places that requires a suspension of common sense. Trust the author - you will be taken to the other side of time. Along the way you will travel through time, black holes, white holes, wormholes, the whole universe(s) of all makes & models, plasmas, redshifting lights, anti-matter, quasars, dark matter, dark energy, general relativity, special relativity, string theory, branes, and much, much more. I found myself at last understanding much of which, in the past I wasn't able to grasp. Admittedly, some paragraphs I had to read several times and... slowly...but I got IT, and WOW! A new way of looking, a new perspective heretofore I'd NEVER IMAGINED!. This happened many times!
This book goes in sequence explaing mankind's search for the begginig. It is a great testament to the author's writing skill that he can achieve this history while keeping the science tuned to the times. It reads effortless but it took time & skill. He also relates the biographies as well as the histories of those times so it is very informative and entertaining in this regard as well. For instance, the story of Saint Augustine of Hippo who was one of the first to conceptionalize the beginning of time. Many physicists use him as example today. In 396 he was asked, "What was God doing before he made heaven and earth?" He replied, "He was preparing hells for people who inquire into profundities." This is of course is a humorous quip. His real answear takes to long too write about & do it the justice that the author does so well.

So in conclusion: this will be time well spent - past, present, future...and you guessed it... Even Before Time!

I found this book informative and easy to grasp, considering the complexities of the subject. The author, Brian Clegg, was able to present the current and past theories on the creation of the universe in a manner that filtered out all the complicated mathematics behind the theories. Therefore, the author's style provided an interesting and educational read. This is not a book for those who want to delve into the detailed physics of the subject, but it is an excellent source for those starting on the journey. There are a few pages related to creation myths which I found to be an interesting starting point. As a side matter I found it discouraging that Amazon does not have a separate rating system that deals with the complaints of Kindle versions of the book which deal mainly with the price rather than the contents of a book. I recommend this book especially to those who read on a broad range of subjects.

Reading Brian Clegg's book one is irresistibly reminded of Paul Davies. The same love of his subject, the same enthusiasm, the same easy command of the English language produces a book that anyone can read without any weighty mental contortions. This is a book about ideas. Found here are the various scenarios that science has created to explain what their findings are showing. Doing what philosophers have done before them they have taken a set of ideas, in this case mathematical equations, and are examining them from every possible angle. To his credit Mr. Clegg manages to cover the most popular theories in a fast paced, lively and clear fashion while handling some really difficult ideas. Don't let it scare you. While some of them, like M-theory and branes, are original ideas of the physicists, many others are recycled philosophy ideas. Take the Groundhog Universe for example, here we have the idea that the universe began in the Big Bang and will end in the Big Crunch only to repeat the cycle endless times. Yet this idea of an endless cycle of birth, death and rebirth is found in many religions from Hinduism to the Aztecs. Or the Matrix, the idea that the universe is some computer game illusion created by a powerful being outside of our awareness; which, of course, is just Renee Descartes' "The Demon" all gussied up in computer jargon.

And the real beauty of reading this book is in the things that are inferred, things most people now takes for granted. Black holes, for instance, have never been found, as of now they are just theoretical constructs as are wormholes. Dark matter, no one has found it and the same can be said for dark energy. As it now stands, our much vaunted science doesn't know what gravity is, doesn't know what dark energy is and can't find 90% of the universe. And how in the world does one measure the distance between branes? It is no wonder that the idea has begun to float about that maybe there is something wrong with quantum theory.

Yet in the end all of this doesn't really harm the book. All of these ideas about what existed before the Big Bang is the purist form of speculation, of course, and nothing is more fun than a book of speculation. What is more fun than to set back in your chair and to try to solve an insolvable mystery? Just plant it firmly in your mind that the universe as described by mathematics and the universe created by your mind are not identical and you will have no problem. Is realism right, do we live in an objectively real world based upon string theory or are the idealists (and now its modern incarnation holography) right and is this world a creation of one's own mind? Mr. Clegg handles these and many more subjects with clarity and even humor but never forget that he is serious. These are the solutions that science offers to that most ultimate of questions, what came before?

Before the Big Bang by Brian Clegg is lively reading. It starts out with early mytholology of our universe and then progresses into how we started to answer basic questions about the universe. It describes much of the history of what people have thought about the universe and how they have attempted to measure it in terms of both time and space. It moves into modern cosmology theories and embraces non conventional ideas and the fundamental fact that scientific theories are never proved but can either have evidence shown in their favor or disproved.

The part of the book discusses how early civilization approached people's perspective of the universe in terms of both space and time and positional relationships between the planets and the sun is described. It serves a refreshing introduction to early ideas. The paradox's arising from the fixed positions of stars compared to the floating positions of other celestial bodies is brought up and the methodology of winning by debate rather than evidence is discussed in ancient greece.

The substance of the book starts with modern cosmology and the eternal universe is discussed in terms of absense of a beginning and absence of spatial boundaries. The book goes into how the debates by astronomers evolved and how they stacked evidence to show the general acceleration of bodies away from each other in terms of redshifting. The book then goes into the problems with the age of the universe implied by big bang theories and then goes into the patchwork fixes of the inflation theories. Also discussed are some string theory ideas, a little bit of quantum loop theories, theres a brief description of the holographic universe. He discusses the problems of dark matter and dark energy and their general non uniformity and unpredictability of the theories that surround them and more importantly the evidence that doesnt exist to support them. Anthopic principles are discussed and multiverses from both bubble universes and quantum multiverse ideas. All of these are discussed quite briefly.

The author seems to be quite a skeptic of inflation theories of the universe, and provides some of his own preferred routes, which i take to be some string theory ideas in particular. He also seems to be quite a stong believer in the idea that in a multiverse world the law of large numbers implies our goldilocks universe must exist. I am not so sure this is true, one can have an infinite set of measure 0 in a larger infinite set, so just because there could be infinite universes doesnt mean that ones with our ingredients are probability 1. I like most of the imagery of the book and think its very readable, but I dont think its entirely accurate. The author describes the travelling salesman problem as not being solvable by an ordinary compuuter. That to my knowledge is a millenium math problem and is an open problem- it is the P vs NP problem. In anycase, the author isnt an active researcher but has a very solid background and obviously keeps up with modern research, the result of which might mean that a lot of his beliefs and biases could be argued against forcefully. The value I got out of it was the author's great ability to communicate and present a enjoyable history to a large amount of ideas that people have had about the origin and evolution of the universe, how it might work, how it might have started and how it might end.

Reading Brian Clegg's book one is irresistibly reminded of Paul Davies. The same love of his subject, the same enthusiasm, the same easy command of the English language produces a book that anyone can read without any weighty mental contortions. This is a book about ideas. Found here are the various scenarios that science has created to explain what their findings are showing. Doing what philosophers have done before them they have taken a set of ideas, in this case mathematical equations, and are examining them from every possible angle. To his credit Mr. Clegg manages to cover the most popular theories in a fast paced, lively and clear fashion while handling some really difficult ideas. Don't let it scare you. While some of them, like M-theory and branes, are original ideas of the physicists, many others are recycled philosophy ideas. Take the Groundhog Universe for example, here we have the idea that the universe began in the Big Bang and will end in the Big Crunch only to repeat the cycle endless times. Yet this idea of an endless cycle of birth, death and rebirth is found in many religions from Hinduism to the Aztecs. Or the Matrix, the idea that the universe is some computer game illusion created by a powerful being outside of our awareness; which, of course, is just Renee Descartes' "The Demon" all gussied up in computer jargon.

And the real beauty of reading this book is in the things that are inferred, things most people now takes for granted. Black holes, for instance, have never been found, as of now they are just theoretical constructs as are wormholes. Dark matter, no one has found it and the same can be said for dark energy. As it now stands, our much vaunted science doesn't know what gravity is, doesn't know what dark energy is and can't find 90% of the universe. And how in the world does one measure the distance between branes? It is no wonder that the idea has begun to float about that maybe there is something wrong with quantum theory.

Yet in the end all of this doesn't really harm the book. All of these ideas about what existed before the Big Bang is the purist form of speculation, of course, and nothing is more fun than a book of speculation. What is more fun than to set back in your chair and to try to solve an insolvable mystery? Just plant it firmly in your mind that the universe as described by mathematics and the universe created by your mind are not identical and you will have no problem. Is realism right, do we live in an objectively real world based upon string theory or are the idealists (and now its modern incarnation holography) right and is this world a creation of one's own mind? Mr. Clegg handles these and many more subjects with clarity and even humor but never forget that he is serious. These are the solutions that science offers to that most ultimate of questions, what came before?

This is a normal book that describes the main theories that try to explain the origin and evolution of the Universe (at very high level). In that sense, the title is a bit misleading. The book is easy to understand for non-professional readers.

What I did not like was the bias against the standard big bang model. Inflation is almost not described, and it is treated as a patch to the main theory. And, on the other hand, other theories that can be qualified (at most) as tentative are treated much better, such as the ekpyrotic Universe. Of course, it is necessary to criticize the incumbent theories, but the alternative must be at least as good. In this book, big bang+inflation are required the highest levels of accuracy, while others do not require to prove even their basics (e.g, existence of branes).

Anyway, it is a good book to have a quick review of the main current theories about the origin of the Universe.

Very few scientists have the ability to put highly complex scientific terms into an everyday language for the reading public. Brian Clegg has done just this and done it superbly. The first 200 pages contains review of the rudiments of theoretical science and religion from the early Greeks through the 21st century. The remainder of the book explores the most recent theories of what, if anything, took place prior to the initial formation of our universe.

This text is not only an excellent starting point for a science novice but serves as a clearly stated summation for those who have been more actively involved in this phenomenon. I highly recommend this publication for anyone..............