"Excellent."--Steven Poole The Wall Street Journal - "Terrific."--Liz Else New Scientist
(Best Popular Science Books of 2025 So Far) - "A brilliant overview of the state of modern
cosmology."--Alex O'Connor alexoconnor.com - "This will expand readers' minds."-- Publishers
Weekly - One of Smithsonian 's Ten Best Science Books of 2025 "An intellectual
feast."--Carlo Rovelli - "A must-read."--Sabine Hossenfelder - "Wonderfully broad and
open-minded."--Roger Penrose - "Remarkable."--Brian Keating A thrilling exploration of
competing cosmological origin stories comparing new scientific ideas that upend our very
notions of space time and reality. By most popular accounts the universe started with a bang
some 13.8 billion years ago. But what happened before the Big Bang? And how do we know it
happened at all? Here prominent cosmologist Niayesh Afshordi and science communicator Phil
Halper offer a tour of the peculiar possibilities: bouncing and cyclic universes time loops
creations from nothing multiverses black hole births string theories and holograms. Along
the way they offer both a call for new physics and a riveting story of scientific debate.
Incorporating insights from Afshordi's cutting-edge research and Halper's original interviews
with scientists like Stephen Hawking Roger Penrose and Alan Guth Battle of the Big Bang
compares these models for the origin of our origins showing each theory's strengths and
weaknesses and explaining new attempts to test these notions. Battle of the Big Bang is a tale
of rivalries and intrigue of clashes of ideas that have raged from Greek antiquity to the
present day over whether the universe is eternal or had a beginning whether it is unique or
one of many. But most of all Afshordi and Halper show that this search is filled with wonder
discovery and community--all essential for remembering a forgotten cosmic past.
