"Excellent."--Steven Poole The Wall Street Journal - "Terrific."--Liz Else New Scientist
(Best Popular Science Books of 2025) - "A brilliant overview of the state of modern
cosmology."--Alex O'Connor alexoconnor.com - "This will expand readers' minds."-- Publishers
Weekly "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.
