Before the Big Bang: The Origins of the Universe (Paperback)

~ (Author) "FOR NEARLY SIX THOUSAND YEARS of recorded history, humans have wondered how the world began, what is the ultimate nature of the matter it is..." (more)
Key Phrases: electron pair model, massive electron pairs, electron pair systems, Big Bang, Nobel Prize, Planck Density (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A brilliantly simple model of how we came to be. ...A wonderful book... a memoir and a complete history of physics." -- The Jerusalem Post

"My head is spinning...mind-boggling. Sternglass has marched to the beat of an entirely different drum." -- New Scientist

Product Description

Here is a radical approach to the Holy Grail of physics, the "theory of everything," and a new theory that the universe was formed from two particles.

Product Details

• Paperback: 294 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books; illustrated edition edition (January 30, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1568581890
• ISBN-13: 978-1568581897
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #625,224 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An INCREDIBLE history of man's quest to understand matter., July 23, 1998

By	Steve Gibson "eBook Lover" (Southern California, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Before the Big Bang: The Origins of the Universe (Hardcover)

I don't recall what inspired me to purchase this book. Probably just idle curiosity about what might have happened before the "Big Bang."

Little did I know that this book would change my entire view of the fabric of life and existence.

Written as a personal history of the author's own quest for a SIMPLE and INTUITIVE explanation of the existence and initial creation of all the matter in the universe, this modest book guides the intelligent lay reader through more than a century of experimentation and research.

You will find yourself understanding sub-atomic particle physics in a visual way that you would have never believed before. I'm only half way through the book, and already I know that the moment I complete it I'll read it again, just to better absorb this incredible book's entirety.

I can't possibly overstate the simplicity and clarity with which this author writes of his own involvement in the search for the basis of material existence and crea! tion, nor of his modesty as he so painstakingly gives credit to every other researcher in the field.

If you purchase this book, and read it, you'll come away with a grasp of sub-atomic physics like you'd never have believed you could attain.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sternglass resolves Einstein's problem with God and dice., July 9, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Before the Big Bang: The Origins of the Universe (Hardcover)

What was remarkable about the book was that it came to several conclusions at current odds with scientific thinking, including a classical explanation for quantum mechanics, something that Einstein struggled with his entire career. The author was able to meet the great Einstein on several occassions, but was never able to present this classical explanation to him. Other profound revelations include: a rotating universe (you might ask in relation to what?); the existence of the primeval atom from which everything evolved in the Big Bang after remaining quiescent (and rotating once)over 17 trillion years; and the uniqueness of the electron/positron as the two fundamental particles out of which everything is made. Sternglass is able to take the electron and the anti-matter electron (the positron) and derive all fundamental particles from their various combinations in a logical way.

All in all a very clever, and by Occam's Razor, believable exposition of how modern physical theory may be wrong about a lot of things, including non-determinism in qauntum mechanics.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Astonishing! What elegance and beauty!, October 1, 2001

By	Matthew J. Arndt (Brattleboro, VT USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Before the Big Bang: The Origins of the Universe (Hardcover)

My praise is unqualified for _Before the Big Bang_. It answers so many previously unanswered questions about the universe, unifies all the physical forces, and unifies all forms of matter and energy, with jaw-dropping elegance and beauty. A few of its many highlights:

Matter is revealed to be made up of pairs of rotating electrons and positrons. Electrons, positrons, and photons are revealed to be forms of vortexs in the ether, so that matter and energy are visually comprehensible as two forms of the same thing, as required by Einstein's E=mc2. The properties of the vortexs also account for the properties of theoretical superstrings. In this way, the gulf between classical and quantum physics evaporates.

Protons are revealed to be made up of four electron-positron pairs and a positron, interacting in such a way (illustrated on p. 250) as to account for the properties of theoretical quarks (which have never been observed individually), the strong force, and the unequaled stability of protons. Neutrons and the weak force are similarly explained.

Electron-positron pairs allow for more massive and yet longer-lived particles than any other known form of matter. This, astonishingly, allows a single electron-positron pair to encompass the mass/energy of the entire universe. This in turn makes it unnecessary to stipulate a problematic infinitely dense singularity and a beginning of time at the big bang.

All cosmologicals structures, from the universe down to planets, are revealed to be rotating systems equally spaced on logarithmic scales of both mass and size. This structure, unaccountable by any previous model, is revealed to have been preexistent in the extraordinarily but finitely dense seed of matter at the big bang. This seed divided by two in a series of stages, until reaching the level of ordinary matter, at which point it ejected outward in the big bang as we know it while retaining many seeds of cosmological structures to come.

This model explains in a beautiful, elegant way many previously unaccountable cosmological structures. Quasars, previously unaccountably brighter and denser than any known cosmological object, and found in the most distant and hence oldest parts of the universe, are revealed to be galaxies in the process of ejecting their matter from their central seed. Galaxies from the earliest stages of the universe, before they could possibly have had time to condense under the force of gravity, are revealed to have had a preexistent structure in their central seed. Dwarf galaxies, previously unaccountable, are revealed to be ejected from their parent galaxy along its axis of rotation. Rotating spiral structures of multiple galaxies, previously unaccountable, are revealed to have been ejected from a central seed.

This book is truly revolutionary. It can only be a matter of time before Sternglass is hailed as a Galileo, who was similarly attacked. Notice how all the negative reviews have been quick to judge and slow to actually read the book, e.g. "It's trash, can't you tell by its cover?"

Finally, the book is filled with dense physics language. Sternglass rightly says that the subject is difficult, but that the lay-reader should be able to follow the main ideas.