
Before the Big Bang
The Origin of Our Universe from the Multiverse
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Narrated by:
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Xe Sands
About this listen
A revolutionary new account of our universe’s creation—and a breathtaking exploration of the landscape from which we sprang—from one of the world’s most celebrated cosmologists
What came before the Big Bang, and what exists outside of the universe it created? Until recently, scientists could only guess at what lay past the edge of space-time. However, as pioneering theoretical physicist Laura Mersini-Houghton explains, new scientific tools are now giving us the ability to peer beyond the limits of our universe and to test our theories about what is there. And what we are finding is upending everything we thought we knew about the cosmos and our place in it.
Mersini-Houghton is no stranger to boundaries—or to pushing through them. As a child growing up in Communist Albania, she discovered a universe beyond her walled-off world through the study of math and science, and through music. As a female cosmologist in a male-dominated field, she transcended the limits that society and her profession tried to place on her. And as a trailblazing researcher, she helped to revolutionize the study of our universe by revealing that, far from living in a cosmic Albania, with a world that ends at its borders, we are part of a larger family of universes—a multiverse—that holds wonders we are only beginning to unlock. Mersini-Houghton’s groundbreaking research suggests that we sit in a quantum landscape whose peaks and valleys hide a multitude of other universes, and even hold the secret to the origins of existence itself. Recent evidence has revealed the signatures of such sibling universes in our own night sky, confirming Mersini-Houghton’s theoretical work and offering humbling evidence that our universe is just one member of an unending cosmic family.
The incredible scientific saga of one woman’s mind-expanding journey through the multiverse, Before the Big Bang will reshape our understanding of humanity’s place in the unfathomable vastness of the cosmos.
Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2022 Laura Mersini-Houghton (P)2022 HarperCollins PublishersListeners also enjoyed...
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Writing for Impact
- 8 Secrets from Science That Will Fire Up Your Readers’ Brains
- By: Bill Birchard
- Narrated by: Bill Birchard
- Length: 5 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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What good will it do to skillfully craft a written argument if you lose your audience? Simple emails, formal reports, blogs, presentations, articles—they need punch to gain influence. Clear structure and logic alone won’t do. To engage readers, you need to make mentally stimulating choices in language—choices that electrify your readers’ mental hotspots. Veteran journalist Bill Birchard reveals the secret of making that happen. He blends the findings from a global cadre of psychologists and neuroscientists with lessons from his long, successful career as a professional writer.
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a very scientific look of what works
- By Datta Groover on 03-25-25
By: Bill Birchard
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Dark Matter and Dark Energy
- The Hidden 95% of the Universe
- By: Brian Clegg
- Narrated by: Mark Cameron
- Length: 4 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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All the matter and light we can see in the universe makes up a trivial five per cent of everything. The rest is hidden. This could be the biggest puzzle that science has ever faced. Since the 1970s, astronomers have been aware that galaxies have far too little matter in them to account for the way they spin around: they should fly apart, but something concealed holds them together. That ’something' is dark matter - invisible material in five times the quantity of the familiar stuff of stars and planets.
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Breezy style, but some painful pronunciation
- By Gordon M. on 02-06-22
By: Brian Clegg
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A Universe from Nothing
- Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing
- By: Lawrence M. Krauss
- Narrated by: Lawrence M. Krauss, Simon Vance
- Length: 5 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Where did the universe come from? What was there before it? What will the future bring? And finally, why is there something rather than nothing? Krauss’ answers to these and other timeless questions, in a wildly popular lecture on YouTube, has attracted almost a million viewers. One of the few prominent scientists to have actively crossed the chasm between science and popular culture, Krauss reveals that modern science is indeed addressing the question of why there is something rather than nothing—with surprising and fascinating results.
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Read Review Before Buying
- By Nathan on 04-26-18
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The Hidden Reality
- Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos
- By: Brian Greene
- Narrated by: Brian Greene
- Length: 13 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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There was a time when “universe” meant all there is. Everything. Yet, in recent years discoveries in physics and cosmology have led a number of scientists to conclude that our universe may be one among many. With crystal-clear prose and inspired use of analogy, Brian Greene shows how a range of different “multiverse” proposals emerges from theories developed to explain the most refined observations of both subatomic particles and the dark depths of space.
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This book & Greene's analogies connected Qs to As
- By Blair on 02-02-11
By: Brian Greene
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Cosmic Bullsh*t
- A Guide to the Galaxy's Worst Life Hacks
- By: Chris Ferrie
- Narrated by: Daniel Henning
- Length: 6 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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A hilarious guide to what's real (and what's not) in our vast, beautiful (and terrifying) universe.
By: Chris Ferrie
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Your Brain Is a Time Machine
- The Neuroscience and Physics of Time
- By: Dean Buonomano
- Narrated by: Aaron Abano
- Length: 8 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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In Your Brain Is a Time Machine, brain researcher and best-selling author Dean Buonomano draws on evolutionary biology, physics, and philosophy to present his influential theory of how we tell and perceive time. The human brain, he argues, is a complex system that not only tells time but creates it; it constructs our sense of chronological flow and enables "mental time travel" - simulations of future and past events.
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Great book on an underrated subject
- By Neuron on 05-09-17
By: Dean Buonomano
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At the Edge of Time
- Exploring the Mysteries of Our Universe's First Seconds
- By: Dan Hooper
- Narrated by: Graham Winton
- Length: 7 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Scientists in the past few decades have made crucial discoveries about how our cosmos evolved over the past 13.8 billion years. But there remains a critical gap in our knowledge: We still know very little about what happened in the first seconds after the Big Bang. At the Edge of Time focuses on what we have recently learned and are still striving to understand about this most essential and mysterious period of time at the beginning of cosmic history.
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Excellent topic selection, explanation, and reading
- By Subway on 05-23-25
By: Dan Hooper
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The End of Everything
- (Astrophysically Speaking)
- By: Katie Mack
- Narrated by: Gabra Zackman, Katie Mack
- Length: 6 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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We know the universe had a beginning. With the Big Bang, it expanded from a state of unimaginable density to an all-encompassing cosmic fireball to a simmering fluid of matter and energy, laying down the seeds for everything from black holes to one rocky planet orbiting a star near the edge of a spiral galaxy that happened to develop life as we know it. But what happens to the universe at the end of the story? And what does it mean for us now?
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My New Favorite!
- By Hannah Crazyhawk on 08-16-20
By: Katie Mack
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The Simulation Hypothesis
- An MIT Computer Scientist Shows Why AI, Quantum Physics, and Eastern Mystics All Agree We Are in a Video Game (Simulation Hypothesis)
- By: Rizwan Virk
- Narrated by: Ray Greenely, Rizwan Virk
- Length: 12 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Are we living in a simulation? MIT computer scientist Rizwan Virk draws from research and concepts from computer science, artificial intelligence, video games, quantum physics, and ancient mystics to explain why we may be living inside a simulated reality like the Matrix. The Simulation Hypothesis is the definitive book on simulation theory and is now completely updated to reflect the latest developments in artificial intelligence and virtual reality.
By: Rizwan Virk
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Einstein's Relativity and the Quantum Revolution: Modern Physics for Non-Scientists, 2nd Edition
- By: Richard Wolfson, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Richard Wolfson
- Length: 12 hrs and 17 mins
- Original Recording
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"It doesn't take an Einstein to understand modern physics," says Professor Wolfson at the outset of these 24 lectures on what may be the most important subjects in the universe: relativity and quantum physics. Both have reputations for complexity. But the basic ideas behind them are, in fact, simple and comprehensible by anyone. These dynamic and illuminating lectures begin with a brief overview of theories of physical reality starting with Aristotle and culminating in Newtonian or "classical" physics.
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Great primer for hard SF fans and physics laymen
- By David on 01-05-15
By: Richard Wolfson, and others
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Quanta and Fields
- The Biggest Ideas in the Universe
- By: Sean Carroll
- Narrated by: Sean Carroll
- Length: 9 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Sean Carroll is creating a profoundly new approach to sharing physics with a broad audience, one that goes beyond analogies to show how physicists really think. He cuts to the bare mathematical essence of our most profound theories, explaining every step in a uniquely accessible way. Quantum field theory is how modern physics describes nature at its most profound level. Starting with the basics of quantum mechanics itself, Sean Carroll explains measurement and entanglement before explaining how the world is really made of fields.
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Difficult
- By Richard on 08-25-24
By: Sean Carroll
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Quantum Physics for Beginners
- The Non-Scientist’s Guide to the Big Ideas of Quantum Mechanics, with Key Principles, Major Theories, and Experiments Simplified
- By: Pantheon Space Academy
- Narrated by: Grant Benker
- Length: 6 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Are you curious about the quantum world but overwhelmed by tough words and complex equations? Make this your first book on quantum—your guide to understanding the universe’s most mysterious topics, from waves and light to space, nature, and even consciousness!
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Mind-blowing concepts made simple
- By D.Lynch on 12-16-24
BTW, I am not a cosmologist, I just watch a lot of PBS Space Time on YouTube
The book seems to hop too quickly from useful analogies like the “physicists on the hill with marbles” to “string landscape vacua”. The author’s 2008 paper “Birth of the Universe from the Multiverse” fills in the gaps, but I found it a tough read.
I didn’t get a QED moment from the “hard evidence” from “dark flow”. See the PBS Space Time video on dark flow. The concept of dark flow (where something outside the universe is sucking galaxies toward it) is controversial. And the multiverse is just a speculation about the cause
The story of the author’s personal and academic journey out of Albania was interesting, but I had to knock off one star because of her and Roger Penrose’s rude treatment of the all too accommodating Turkish restaurant owner
Probably shouldn’t read this on Audible
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Excellent
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Amazing book it’s a must read for those that are curious about the beginning of our universe
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Cosmology simplified but not oversimplified
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too much about how wonderful the author is
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too much about her life than the science
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We are not alone in this universe
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Absolutely loved this story, this tale, the incredible journey from the shores on the beach to the edges of the multi universes
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Enjoyable for a non-physicist
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me. me. me.
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