One of the biggest questions in science has always been how the universe formed. Over the last century, we've made a lot of progress about understanding the way it has developed: The Big Bang Model. With the most sophisticated telescopes ever built, scientists have now made measurements confirming the accuracy of this model within just moments of when the universe began.
Despite all this evidence, the question remains: What actually started the whole process?
Physics actually does have an answer to this question - one which doesn't require the intervention of a creator deity - and in his newest book physicist Lawrence Krauss lays the explanation out in language that is accessible to non-scientists. If this sounds interesting, check out our review of Krauss's A Universe From Nothing.
If you've read the book, then be sure to let us know what you thought of it. Could the laws of quantum physics and relativity have created the universe as we know it? Is God a necessary component of the universe?
Comments
I have yet to read Krauss’ book but will get to it soon. I have heard him in podcast interviews and he does not say the universe came from absolutely nothing. He assumes the laws of physics and speaks of quantum fluctuations but am looking forward to finding out the details. At this point I am wonder what accounts to the preexisting things he assumes and whether or not he can avoid an infinite regress i.e. there are turtles all the way down and there is no bottom.
The other thing I wish to find out is whether he assumes the cosmic singularity at the Big Bang and how he gets anything to come out of it? I guess I will have to read his book but if anyone has and knows his answers please post them.
I have read about 80% of the book so far and I give it a ten. Well written and entertaining enough that it is actually “good reading”, almost unheard of in Physics books I know, but it is worth the time. I have to admit that sometimes I have to stop and just process data for a bit but it is explained simply enough that anyone can follow it. Worth the bucks, fer sure : )
The frame of the questions is biased. Cosmologist Carl Sagan said
“The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence”. A Creator God may not be necessary but that theory does not mean that there was
no God.
I have pointed out that Genesis 1:3 is about God saying : Let there be light. The Big Bang Theory goes to the point of Planck Time and pure
light radiation before Quarks and Leptons developed. Perhaps Moses was the first Cosmologist thanks to God.
I have read most of it and will finish it eventually. It is entertaining and informative, but suffers the flaws that other books by Krauss have – it is slapdash and discursive, with lots of references to other parts of the book and to his own career. It reads as if it was dictated on the spot, not carefully organized and written. For examples of much better physics writing, see Sean Carroll and Brian Greene. BTW, in my mind he does not avoid the regress on “something from nothing” – it depends on what “nothing” is defined as. Krauss’s definition is from physics, which begs the question of where physical “nothingness” comes from.