Before the Big Bang

For readers of popular cosmology-related science books like Carlo Rovelli, Brian Greene, Stephen Hawking and Neil de Grasse Tyson.The first book to focus exclusively on the origin of the universe from the multiverse – a cutting-edge new theory.Mersini-Houghton weaves into her book the remarkable story of her journey from her childhood in Communist Albania to the pinnacle of her scientific fieldLaura Mersini-Houghton is an internationally renowned cosmologist and theoretical physicist and one of the world's leading experts on the multiverse and the origins of the universe. Born in Albania when it was still under a communist dictatorship, she was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to study in the United States and is now a regular visiting professor at several universities around the world, including the University of Cambridge. She has been the subject of hundreds of articles in leading popular science magazines and has appeared in documentaries on the Science Channel, Discovery Channel and the BBC.Laura Mersini-Houghton's Before the Big Bang provides a fascinating account of the background and underlying motives for her intriguing proposal for the physical principles that may have governed the explosive origin of our universeWhat if our universe, vast though it may be, is but an infinitesimal fragment of reality? What would this 'multiverse' be like? What would be the implications? And how could we possibly test the idea? There is no better guide to the bizarre, and sometimes paradoxical, cosmic super-realm than Laura Mersini-Houghton, who has devoted her research to seeking the tell-tale signs in the sky hinting that our universe is indeed not aloneFrom one of the world's most renowned cosmologists, Before the Big Bang offers insights into the Big Bang and, beyond it, into the majestic world of a quantum multiverse. The tale of Laura Mersini-Houghton's journey of discovery, interlaced with her personal stories of growing up in communist Albania and breaking free of its confines, makes for a fascinating readA fascinating and unusual hybrid of pop science and memoir... The author's explanation of such exotic ideas is vivid and good-humoured, and much enlivened by tableaux from her education in AlbaniaThe age-old cosmological question of how and why the Big Bang happened has never been tackled with such aplomb