Before the Big Bang

A fascinating account – SIR ROGER PENROSE, Nobel laureateWhat if our universe, vast though it may be, is but an infinitesimal fragment of reality? What would this ‘multiverse’ be like? 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 – PAUL DAVIES, author of What’s Eating the Universe?From 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 – STEPHON ALEXANDER, author of Fear of a Black UniverseA 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 Albania – Stephen Poole * Daily Telegraph, 5* *The age-old cosmological question of how and why the Big Bang happened has never been tackled with such aplomb * Daily Telegraph, Books of the Year *

Laura 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.