A Universe from Nothing

by Lawrence M. Krauss, Richard Dawkins (Afterword)

“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?”

Lawrence Krauss’s provocative answers to these and other timeless questions in a wildly popular lecture now on YouTube have attracted almost a million viewers. The last of these questions in particular has been at the center of religious and philosophical debates about the existence of God, and it’s the supposed counterargument to anyone who questions the need for God. As Krauss argues, scientists have, however, historically focused on other, more pressing issues—such as figuring out how the universe actually functions, which can ultimately help us to improve the quality of our lives.

Now, in a cosmological story that rivets as it enlightens, pioneering theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss explains the groundbreaking new scientific advances that turn the most basic philosophical questions on their heads. One of the few prominent scientists today to have actively crossed the chasm between science and popular culture, Krauss reveals that modern science is addressing the question of why there is something rather than nothing, with surprising and fascinating results. The staggeringly beautiful experimental observations and mind-bending new theories are all described accessibly in A Universe from Nothing, and they suggest that not only can something arise from nothing, something will always arise from nothing.

With his characteristic wry humor and wonderfully clear explanations, Krauss takes us back to the beginning of the beginning, presenting the most recent evidence for how our universe evolved—and the implications for how it’s going to end. It will provoke, challenge, and delight readers as it looks at the most basic underpinnings of existence in a whole new way. And this knowledge that our universe will be quite different in the future from today has profound implications and directly affects how we live in the present. As Richard Dawkins has described This could potentially be the most important scientific book with implications for supernaturalism since Darwin.

A fascinating antidote to outmoded philosophical and religious thinking, A Universe from Nothing is a provocative, game-changing entry into the debate about the existence of God and everything that exists. “Forget Jesus,” Krauss has argued, “the stars died so you could be born.”

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Physics, Philosophy, Astronomy, Atheism, Religion

256 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 10, 2012

About the author

Lawrence Maxwell Krauss is a Canadian-American theoretical physicist and cosmologist who taught at Arizona State University (ASU), Yale University, and Case Western Reserve University. He founded ASU's Origins Project in 2008 to investigate fundamental questions about the universe and served as the project's director.
Krauss is an advocate for public understanding of science, public policy based on sound empirical data, scientific skepticism, and science education. An anti-theist, Krauss seeks to reduce the influence of what he regards as superstition and religious dogma in popular culture. Krauss is the author of several bestselling books, including The Physics of Star Trek (1995) and A Universe from Nothing (2012), and chaired the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Board of Sponsors.
Upon investigating allegations about sexual misconduct by Krauss, ASU determined that Krauss had violated university policy, and did not renew his Origins Project directorship for a third term in July 2018. Krauss retired as a professor at ASU in May 2019, at the end of the following academic year. He currently serves as president of The Origins Project Foundation. Krauss hosts The Origins Podcast with Lawrence Krauss and publishes a blog titled Critical Mass.

Reviews

[Riku Sayuj · Rating 4 out of 5]

Krauss has managed to draw an almost perfect normal curve (Bell Curve) with this book as far as engagement and content is concerned.

The Start of the Curve

It starts slow by promising us a full whirlwind historic tour from Galileo to CMBR and beyond and takes its own sweet time getting to even Einstein and then dwells on the most known aspects of modern science as if no one has heard of all that before.

The Rise

Then as I was contemplating postponing the book for some future date, Krauss suddenly draws himself up to his full commanding ivory tower height and things suddenly get hard to comprehend. Now I was perked, this was what I was there with him for, after all.

The Peak of the Curve

Maybe it is because that was the only part of the book which I knew not enough about. I had read about the fact that the only way to explain the universe is to postulate an inflationary scenario for the early universe but Krauss puts it in terms which no other author which I have read has done. He makes it beautiful, breath-taking and completely believable that in a few micro seconds the universe expanded by an order of magnitude of 24 and attained the final shape that we see now! And he systematically charts out how this theory was derived based on observed size and density of universe, based on postulated energy of empty space, based on curvature of the universe and on the nature of acceleration of distant 'standard candles'. During this part of the book as well as the part in which he lists out the reasons for why the universe we live in is flat and accelerating and dominated by energy (as against mass, ie, by repulsive force of acceleration than by attractive force of gravity) and then slam-dunks it in by explaining how all this can only be explained by an inflationary early universe.

The Dip

Just as I was bristling with all the new knowledge and information and thinking of the rave review this book is gonna get and about how knowledgeable I was going to be as I finish it, Krauss grinds the journey to a screeching halt as far as science is concerned. He takes a major left turn and plunges into an entire chapter on speculating if scientists wo trillion years into the future can ever find out the true nature of the universe. The anser is no. All evidence of the origins of universe would be lost or obscured by then and Kraus concludes that it is possible that even with the best scientific method, minds and far advanced technology, it is posible to reach the wrong conclusions. In face no matter how advanced that civilization is they will never know of a world beyond their own meta-galaxy! This is a wonderful thought an Richard Dawkins comments extensively on it in the afterword but surely it didn't warrant so many pages in al already small book? But in spite of the boring nature of the chapter, it is sill a very profound one - All our attempts to understand anything is limited by the presence of physical evidence, so we must also think about what might already have been obscured from us in the 13.odd billion years of the universe and this is especially true if the inflationary hypothesis is correct because an inflation like that would be like a flood over a crime scene. So the chapter is about humility even though Krauss tried to make it into an argument about why we live in a very special time, the only time we can wonder why it is special. This is again a clear opening to fit a god-of-the-gaps into. I am amazed at how many new avenues Krauss has opened up in this book. Is he secretly against Dawkins and Hitchens?

The Lower End

And then he shifts into trying to explain the universe in terms of the Anthropic Principle which I have a tough time accepting even though I agree with the sturdy logic of it. I just feel it is Wrong, that is all, to explain things by saying that we wouldn't be here to talk about it if it were not so and that is the answer.

The interest is still held fo a while as he does a critical analysis of string theory and concludes that it is a wonderful mathematical and theoretical edifice but it has proven/predicted not one single observation in 25 years or so and hence is more or less a dead-end. He plainly asks the common reader to get over the string theory hype and stop talking about String Theory to show how knowledgeable you are. If anyone talks of string theory and TOE to you, count on the fact that he heard about some stuff during the Great Hype and never bothered enough to understand or keep up-to-date.

The Long Tail of the Curve

And then comes the low point of the book, which Krauss probably put in only to gain traction with Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. The long rant about religious claims and about their argument about "How can something come out of nothing" - the only answer is that it does, it still is happening and something can also go back into nothing in the future. So what does that prove? Not much I think except to accept that the universe is right strange, brotha. Then comes the epilogue about how science has to be respected and all that Carl Sagan stuff as science as a candle in the dark, the normal curve tending towards zero on the tail now, reader barely awake.

The Anomaly

And finally, the book winds down with a poetic afterword by Dawkins registering a major upturn anomaly in the normal curve towards the very end. (any good normal distribution will have the outliers after all).

Takeaways

The reader can come way from the book with a feeling that he now knows some 'deep' quantum kick-ass fundamentals without having been stretched as much as, say, a Brian Greene would do to you in The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory. This must be the reason for the sudden popularity of the book and comparisons with 'The Origin of Species' and with A Brief History of Time as the next great opening of windows by science and as the final nail in the coffin that Darwin built for religion. Richard Dawkins sure sounds very pep in his afterword, as if, now that this book is out, no more argument is possible.

I am not to sure about that of course. Ultimately the book is making the claim that everything we can measure and see and know anything at all about, ever, is just 1% of the universe. That is to say that physics can never know anything about 99% of what exist in the universe. Now, that is dangerous territory and can play right into the hands of religious aficionados. I wonder why Dawkins was elated by the book and not feverishly going back to the drawing board to counter all the hundreds of nonsensical faith-based claims that can crop up from this information.

Final Word

In the end, I liked the book. It was worth the read for that amazing middle portion and for the analysis on string theory. but to compare it with The Origin of Species as a landmark work or to talk as if it is the definitive word in the argument strikes me as hyperbole. It is a well-written work accessible to the lay-reader that tries to explain how much modern science does not know. If that fills you with a sense of wonder, this is the book for you.



Post Script
PS. I really don't get why Ian McEwan turned up to comment on the cover. Some mix up? Hmm...

[Manny · Rating 3 out of 5]

Point/Counterpoint

A Nice Brief Account Of The Inflation/Ω/Dark Energy Thread

Krauss, who was personally involved in some of the work and knows all the key actors, does a fine job of summarising progress in cosmology over the last fifteen years. The most significant development, needless to say, has been the discovery of Dark Energy. Krauss presents the background and shows why it wasn't quite as unexpected as has often been made out; he was one of the few people to have predicted it, though it sounds like he could hardly believe his own prediction. He is also good on showing you how solid the evidence is. To people outside the field, it isn't at all obvious that the case is a strong one, since it depends on ultra-precise measurements of the distances to the most remote galaxies, something that is anything but trivial to do. Krauss straightforwardly says that he had doubts at first and urged his colleagues not to jump on the bandwagon; but, after a while, so much material had accumulated that it was almost impossible to explain the facts in any other way.

Krauss also presents a compelling account of how the theory of gravitational lensing was first developed, almost by accident, by Einstein, and later used to obtain accurate estimates of the overall curvature of the universe. He explains how the various streams of research have combined to show that the universe is flat to within observational error, and how this fits together with the now-standard inflationary model to yield a model of a flat universe with zero total energy. As many people have pointed out, this opens the intriguing possibility that the universe could have been created from no more than a vacuum fluctuation in empty space.

Krauss is honest about the limitations of our knowledge. In an imaginative passage, he makes a projection of what hypothetical cosmologists three trillion years from now would be able to deduce about the history of the cosmos they saw; he argues that it would be impossible for them to find evidence for either dark energy or an expanding universe. The obvious implication is that changing conditions may similarly have erased evidence that we would need to understand the true history of the early universe.

The book would have been better if Krauss had not felt impelled to take frequent and generally unnecessary pot-shots at creationists, theologians and philosophers, but is still an informative and enjoyable read.

Holy Fucking Shit, This Book Just Blows My Mind

Oh My God, I was going to say, but Krauss, in this stunning book, gives you solid evidence that God doesn't exist. The latest advances in astronomy have uncovered a bunch of amazing new facts. Believe it or not, we now know the age of the universe to four significant figures!! Yes, the universe is 13.72 billion years old - not 13.71 billion or 13.73 billion!!!

But that's just the starting point in Professor Krauss's whirlwind tour of all human knowledge. He tells you how 99% of the universe is invisible dark matter and dark energy. Incredibly, there's exactly enough invisible stuff to make space perfectly flat. And that means... wait for it... that the universe could only have started from nothing! Yes, you heard me. If things started with nothing and got blown up by inflation (don't worry, he tells you what it is), then you'd have exactly what we see today!

So who needs God? Not Richard Dawkins, who wrote the cool afterword!

[Ahmad Ebaid · Rating 2 out of 5]

"كون من لاشيء، لماذا هنالك شيء بدلا من لا شيء؟"



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عندما يقيس العلماء طاقة أحد عناقيد المجرات، تكون النتيجة أن معظم الكتلة تتمركز في الظلام بين المجرات، حيث الفراغ

وهذا الفراغ الخالي من الذرات والإشعاع هو ما يطلق المؤلف عليه "لا شيء". وهذا الفراغ يتمدد، والتموجات الكمية شكلت البنى التي نراها اليوم من النجوم والمجرات من لا شيء

قوانين الجاذبية النظرية تخبرنا بأنه بإمكان الجاذبية توليد طاقة سلبية تعادل الطاقة الايجابية للمادة، وتكون المحصلة النهائية للطاقة في الكون هو صفر، وهذا كون يمكن أن ينتج من لاشيء

لماذا هناك شيء من لا شيء؟ لأن الفراغ غير مستقر، وقد تتحول طاقة اللاشيء/الفراغ إلى مادة


هذه هي فقط فكرة الكتاب، وباقي الكتاب؟ لا شيء، فهذا كتاب من لا شيء

ولد الكتاب من رحم محاضرة ألقاها لورانس كراوس أكتوبر 2009 في لوس أنجلوس، تبدأ بسرد أكثر الاكتشافات إثارة للدهشة في الفيزياء خلال القرن الماضي، وتنتهي بأبحاثه الخاصة في الفيزياء والتي تتعلق بالتساؤل عن نهاية الكون. قرأت الكتاب قبل المحاضرة، وليست مصادفة أن ما ورد في المحاضرة كان هو أكثر ما أتذكره جيدا من الكتاب

كانت المحاضرة جيدة ومرحة، ولكن يبدون أنه عندما قرر كراوس تضمين المحاضرة ضمن هذا الكتاب لم يبذل الجهد الكافي في إعادة كتابة المحاضرة، وإنما قام بإحاطة المادة المقدمة في المحاضرة بتفاصيل كثيرة من مرجع ما، وهكذا تفاصيل عملت على إفساد الجسد الأنيق للمحاضرة وتركته مترهل غير مستساغ

كما أن تلك التفاصيل سردت بسرعة وتعجل، دون الشرح اللازم. ويمكنكم تصور الجسد المترهل الذي قد ينتجه نحات يمر على جسد منحوتته بهكذا طريقة. تفاصيل كثيرة متناثرة بإهمال ولا تشبع نفسا فضولية، فيسود جو من مشاعر الغضب ��التي قد تنتاب الفضولي الذي لا يستطيع أن يتنصت جيدا إلى حديث رجلان من عالم آخر

ولهذا فالتقييم منخفض، فأنا أعتبر أن الكتاب لم يقدم شيئا، وكل هذه التفاصيل المترهلة عن الموضوع الساحر اخترت تجاهلها، تماما كما قد يتجاهل الفارس رؤيته لحورية قبيحة حتى لا يغير صورة الحوريات الحسناوات في خيالة. وفي انتظار كتاب آخر عن اللاشيء

***

"إن المستقبل ليس ما اعتدنا عليه"
يوجي بيرا

الكتاب حافل بالعديد من الاقتباسات الجيدة كالاقتباس السابق، ولكنها معا لا تشكل سميفونية متناغمة أو حتى لوحة جميلة كمنظر السماء الذي كان يحيط بأسلافنا، فالاقتباسات قد أصابها الترهل الذي أصاب بقية الكتاب

***

الترجمة؟ لا يمكن أن أصفها بالجيدة، ففي غير موضوع تتكون من جمل غير سلسلة، ناتجة على الأغلب من كون المترجم غير مستوعب لموضوع الكتاب، ويتضح جهله بالفيزياء حين ترجم اسم عالم الفيزياء النووية الضعيفة "محمد عبد السلام" الحاصل على نوبل عن أعماله مع شريكه "ستيفن وينبرج"، إلى "أبدوس سلام". وبمناسبة الحديث عن عبد السلام، فهو أحد المسلمين الحاصلين على جائزة نوبل، ولكن يتم تجاهل ذكره عادة من طرف المسلمين العرب، لأنه ولد لمسلمين أحمديين وليس لمسلمين سنة مثلهم.

[Bharath · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is a deep sense of curiosity in most of us on how the universe came to be. If we manage to determine that, it would be the pinnacle of human intellect & achievement, I think. Lawrence argues in the book how science has progressed enough to explain how the universe grew from ‘Nothing’. A note of warning though – this ‘Nothing’ assumes the existence of space and the laws of physics already being in place. This (as the author notes as well), is not the ‘Nothing’ many of us will assume this to be. The absolute ‘Nothing’ which some or many of us understand differently also finds some limited discussion towards the end of the book.

The book traces the progress we have made in uncovering the mysteries of the universe – and with each new discovery, the role of God diminishes. Through the book, Lawrence expectedly takes several digs at theology. He states that scientific facts should not be ignored, and a ‘God of the gaps’ (attributing what science is yet to explain to God) is a poor concept as it in any case diminishes the role of God as understood by religion. I agree and think most people do accept this, but still find meaning in religion for personal growth and treat (or should as Joseph Campbell advises) a lot of what is stated in religious texts metaphorically (also Advaita Vedanta treats the concept of God very differently). Scientific evidence is very strong (such as with the cosmic microwave background radiation) that there was a big bang, the universe went through a period of rapid expansion, and matter was created leading to what we see today.

I found the concepts of the flat, closed and open universe to be fascinating. The discussion around this and the implications for the future of the universe makes for very engrossing reading. We are most likely in a flat universe (though this is not conclusive) – light does not curve and the universe may not roll back onto itself. The author mentions that we are at the best possible time to determine the secrets of the universe, since as we go on – the expansion would tear apart galaxies and greatly diminish the remnants of the big bang. This is interesting – indicating we should be investing more in cosmology now.

As one would expect, it is not that the book has all the answers – after all science itself does not yet. The creation of the universe from nothing or the possibility of a multiverse finds some discussion towards the end of the book. There is some barely disguised disdain for string theory – which I share as well since it comes as force fitted, excessively complex and detached from reality to me.

I found parts of the book to be a bit dense / less readable, nor did I find much of the humor the synopsis of the book mentions.

The book is intellectually stimulating and does well to bring advances in cosmology together in a crisp narrative.

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

One thing is certain, however. The metaphysical 'rule', which is held as an ironclad conviction by those whom I have debated the issue of creation, namely that "out of nothing nothing comes," has no foundation in science. Arguing that it is self-evident, unwavering, and unassailable is like arguing, as Darwin falsely did, when he made the suggestion that the origin of life was beyond the domain of science by building an analogy with the incorrect claim that matter cannot be created or destroyed. All it represents is an unwillingness to recognize the simple fact that nature may be cleverer than philosophers or theologians.

I'm not going to even attempt to figure out if what Lawrence Krauss is saying is scientifically correct. I have no way of knowing, even though his is a pop-science book, many of the arguments went flying over my head like some high velocity particle being expelled from a black hole (with apparently no need for high energy because of some properties of black holes, gravity, quantum stuff, particles and other things that I can just nod along with). I could whine that the lack of footnotes, or citations to where I could read the articles dealing with this stuff is missing, but I have a feeling that a) it's easy enough to do a bit of library research to uncover any of the articles but b) if I tried to read any of them my brain might collapse into itself like some unstable quantum universe under the pressure of my own ignorance.

One reviewer I noticed was turned off by the constant return to 'bashing' big G and his believers around. This reviewer believes that Krauss should have laid off a little and just let the science speak for itself. Fuck them, I say. Bash away. Yeah, the believers might not be the ones who will ever read this book, but throw rocks at their flimsy and childish beliefs. Why? Because we (I mean I) live in a country where more people believe in angels than believe in evolution and I work in a bookstore where more people will probably buy the book that has the prayer for ridding your life of satanic demon birds in it than will buy this book. Any chance you get throw intellectual rocks at the fuckers, because guess what? They are throwing rocks all the time, and they are name-calling and attempting to push their medieval bullshit fear mongering on everyone. That said, it's not like there is name calling going on in this book, it's just the author is pointing out that there is no reason to revert to creation myths to explain things, science is doing a fairly good job at chiseling away at a fairly comprehensive picture of the universe without the words, let there be light being said and logos permeating the cosmos.

All this aside though, the book is really interesting. I would do an awful job at even trying to paraphrase the arguments and discoveries that points to everything in the universe was created out of quantum fluctuations in 'nothingness', or in the empty space where until fairly recently everyone thought was just empty space, but now scientists are realizing is filled with 'stuff' that is a whirlpool of strange goings ons and contains more dark energy than all of the observable energy in the whole big, gigantic, universe. Want some of the details on how this is so? Read the book (I sound like the old commercial from the 1980's for that Scientology tract). It's a fascinating idea, and sucks even a little more 'meaning' out of our existence, what if we really are only here because of some particles popping into existence at the mind boggling strange quantum level and because they went through an inflationary period in the mind boggling tiny amount of time before they would normally pop back out of existence (apparently at this level things do pop in and out of existence fairly often, how exactly scientists know this I can't say, but it sounded convincing to me) and because of that everything we can possibly see and tons of stuff that is so far away from us that we will never be able to see even using the most powerful technologies we have was formed. Fucking incredible, right? Maybe not the most comforting, it's not going to reassure you that you really are important and that something bigger than yourself loves you, but really more beautiful and amazing than the idea that some jealous being floating around the ether decided on a whim to create the world and then lingered around for billions of years before throwing some gigantic temper tantrums on the equivalent of a few grains of sand on the gigantic beach that would be 'his' creation.

The ideas in this book are 'dangerous', if I was feeling sleazy and wanted to dupe some stupid motherfuckers, I would set out to take the basic premises of this book and concoct some New Age book using a few scientific facts and make a Secret-esque book about the power to create something from nothing. I'll leave that to people with less morals and more ambition than me though. There is a lot of ground in this book to misunderstand and trample around on to make all kinds of nonsensical 'metaphysical' extrapolations from.

And speaking of metaphysics, without the quotes and not in the way that most people use the word (when people generally ask for the metaphysics books they aren't looking for philosophy they are looking for New Age), the ideas in this book are like a giant wedge to shove into classic philosophical arguments. If the idea of nothing can come from nothing is overthrown by science what does that do to whole lines of philosophical reasoning? This is one of the basic tenets of Western Philosophy, it's what you learn in Philosophy School, it's how you help shape logical arguments about the Big Questions. All the way back to Aristotle (and beyond, but I'm going to stop there, it gets different when you step back to Plato, and the Pre-Socratics, well just forget it), it's this basic idea that works to create his own speculation about creation (he sidestepped the question in a way by saying the universe must be eternal since there could be no prime-mover), and following his logic it's one of those tools that most philosophy people carry around in their mental toolbox to help them call bullshit on arguments with weak premises.

Krauss likes to take pot-shots at philosophers, too. And this is probably not a bad thing. I can imagine a Zizek getting a hold of a few of the ideas in this book and running rampant through Lacan and Hitchcock with them to make up some unsettling and absurd claims, but lets consider him and his ilk theorists, and not philosophers for the sake of this review, but it would be fascinating (and unrealizable, because of the whole space time continuum and all) to have honest to goodness heavy-weight philosophers take this kind of knowledge and re-work it into their own views of the universe. What would an Aristotle or a Spinoza be able to do with their own philosophies with the added benefit of years and years of scientific discovery at their disposal? I'm not saying they would advance our knowledge necessarily beyond what we have now, but what avenues of thought would they go down by knowing more about the physical world then the time they lived in? Or, more realistically, would these great philosophers not hang their head in shame if they saw that their works were still being read and certain arguments of theirs still being wielded even in the face of scientific discoveries that led them to be obsolete, did any of these philosophers ever want to be just accepted as blind dogma?

I'm losing a bit of control on this review. So I'll sum up, the world is strange and beautiful and we are more likely than not just an insignificant part of it, but we are observers of it and we should be open to understanding it as it is, even if it's not the most comforting version of the world that we might want, just because it Is and there is nothing else.

[Mohammad Ranjbari · Rating 4 out of 5]

ویژگی ممتاز این کتاب، زبان سادۀ آن در توضیح نکات سخت و آمار و مباحث مربوط به فیزیک و نجوم بود.
از خواندش غرق در لذت و تفکر شدم.
وقتی مابین عدم و وجود قرار می گیرم، تصور نبودِ هیچ و تصور به وجود آمدن از هیچ و بیگ بنگ و گسترش کیهان و ماده و مادۀ تاریک و انرژی تاریک و ... همه و همه، صحنه های پر ابهام و تکان دهنده ای برای روح و فکرم می شود. این کتاب را اغلب، شب ها قبل از خواب مطالعه می کردم، چون دوست داشتم در پیش درآمد خوابیدن، ذهنم را به ابدیت بسپارم و حتی هیچ بودن را متصور شوم و مانند چشمی باشم که آغاز را می بیند و به سوی انجام هم رهسپار می شود. به تمدن ها و سیاره هایی فکر کنم که شاید در این حجم کثیر از احتمالات، هستند و حضور دارند. اما فاصله ها اجازۀ آگاهی نمی دهد. و یا از بین میلیاردها کهکشان، این زمین است که مستثنی ست. با این افکار به خواب می رفتم تا پاسخ به این پرسش ها نیز هم شیرین باشد و هم مبهم و شاید روزی قابل تعبیر...

[David Rubenstein · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a short, entertaining and informative book, written by a leading cosmologist. Lawrence Krauss describes, step by step, the observational evidence for the expansion of the universe, the existence of dark matter, and dark energy. He clearly describes the differences between a closed, open, and a flat universe, and shows the the reasons why we probably live in a flat universe. I had never understood before reading his explanation, how the spatial scales of variability of the cosmic microwave background radiation proves that our universe is flat. In a flat universe, space is in Euclidean geometry, and light rays travel in straight lines. The universe will not implode upon itself in the distant future.

He shows the evidence for the big bang theory--quite a lot of evidence is behind the theory--I had no idea. Scientists claim that the universe has expanded for 13.72 billion years since the big bang: How do they figure it so precisely, to four significant figures? Krauss explains this very nicely.

Krauss shows a way out of the anthropic principle, that is, that the universe's characteristics were chosen to be "just right" for the production of galaxies, stars, earth, and life. He shows that the idea of multiple universes is not so far-fetched, if one defines the universe as that region of space that is causally connected.

Krauss adds a subtle, dry humor to his text. For example, the title of the sixth chapter is The Free Lunch at the End of the Universe, a bow to the title of the book The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams. So what is the free lunch? As the universe is expanding, the density of energy remains constant. That is because for any galaxy in a flat universe, its positive energy of motion is exactly balanced by its negative energy of gravitational attraction. Truly "empty" space is unstable--small quantum fluctuations give rise to the creation of matter, and at the same time conserve energy. Krauss quotes Yogi Berra, "The future ain't what it used to be."

[Lilo · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a layperson, I don’t feel qualified to review a scientific book written by a renowned professor of theoretical physics. But here are a few thoughts I had during and after reading this book:

Upfront I must confess that I did not fully understand the contents.

What, for instance, is a “flat universe”? O.k., you can blow up a balloon, and the more you blow it up, the less curvature its surface will have. Fine! But will it ever get totally flat? Just try it. I’ll bet you anything that it will burst before it gets anywhere near to be flat. So why is Professor Krauss talking about a flat universe? We can’t be there yet. And what would happen if we ever got near there? Would our universe bust, or would it ignore all predictions? Taking from my meager recollections of what I ever learned in math, the curvature would get infinitely close to flat but would never reach it. Correct me if I am wrong. So what’s all this talk about a flat universe? I don’t get it.

There is also a lot of talk about what Nothing really means. The experts of different fields of science, philosophy, and theology don’t seem to be able to agree on how Nothing needs to be defined. Well, I can’t help them there. They’ll have to figure it out between themselves.

Is Nothing still Nothing when it has the potential to create Something? Maybe this Nothing contains Something after all. And is Nothing equivalent to empty space, or is it something different? Somewhere in this book it says that empty space pops up from Nothing. Now, this had me really confused. If Nothing and empty space are the same, then Nothing must pop up from Nothing. Well, this is beyond me. Trying to comprehend this, my brain feels like empty space or rather like a black hole.

Talking about black holes: I had always been under the impression that whatever matter gets too close to a black hole will be sucked into it, and not even the smartest theoretical physicist knows what awaits it there. No scientist claims to know what’s on the other side of a black hole. (That’s, at least, last I heard.) And now Professor Krauss tells me that there is a virtual particle escaping when a pair of positive and negative particles reaches the event horizon of a black hole. And what’s worse, the particle that flies off to infinity takes away its twin’s energy. This messes up the law of conservation of energy and, over time, results in the black hole being deprived of more and more energy until it finally disappears out of existence. Well, maybe I got this all wrong. I wouldn’t notice anyway if a black hole were missing on the starry sky.

Btw, it was new to me that our universe only came to be because of a one-in-a-billion impurity of equal matches of matter and antimatter during the Big Bang. Without this impurity, matter and antimatter would have equaled each other out in a matter of split seconds or minutes or hours or a few thousand hundred of years. (I don’t quite remember, but what does this matter when we are talking about the immense age of our universe, which, I learned, is exactly 23,73 billions of years old.) In other words: Not only we but everything in our whole universe is a product of some pollution. This was quite a shock to me. Yet I was somewhat comforted by the fact, which Professor Krauss has pointed out, that however our universe came to be, we are all made of stardust.

You see, that even though this book is a bit over my head, I certainly learned Something.

I must say, however, that I have a beef with this book. Yet let me start from the beginning. No, not from the Big Bang—only from the beginning of my writing here. I should have told you upfront that Professor Krauss is trying hard to convince you, the reader, that our universe did NOT NEED a creator (or more likely even, did NOT HAVE a creator). And Richard Dawkins, who wrote the epilogue, is literally preaching that there is no God behind the Big Bang. I, on the other hand, assume that there IS, even though I do not believe in a personalized God, as He is portrayed in the bible and in all religions (maybe with the exception of Buddhism, which is actually less a religion and more a philosophy.) What I assume is a force behind the Big Bang, which is a Something and Not a Nothing.

Well, who am I to argue with renowned scientists, such as Professor Krauss and Professor Dawkins? Compared to their high-caliber cannon of a brain, my brain is only a BB gun. Yet let me point out that how ever much Professor Krauss and Professor Dawkins know, there is still more that they don’t know. So for instance, they (as well as other theoretical physicists) haven’t got the slightest clue what the so-called dark energy of empty space is (which makes up for about 70% of all the energy in the universe). Neither do they know too much about parallel universes they claim exist. (Well, I’ll forgive them this because I know even less about parallel universes.) So for all they don’t know, they are IMHO a bit too sure that our universe (as well as an infinite number of parallel universes) came from Nothing and not from Something.

Now with all due respect to Professors Krauss and Dawkins, I would like you, the reader, to consider that my little BB gun of a brain might be right on target, while Professor Krauss’s and Professor Dawkin’s high-caliber cannons of brains might be shooting in the wrong direction.


For a scientific review of this book, please read Rama’s review at

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Simcha York · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lawrence Krauss's A Universe from Nothing appears to have been done a serious disservice by the author, the editor, or both in that what would otherwise be a decent enough (though not particularly groundbreaking) work of popular science has been press-ganged into the tired ranks of writings on the God Wars. While I haven't yet read a book from either side of this debate that adds anything really worthwhile to a discussion which is largely sophmoric and whose actors seem to spend most of their time stumbling over one anothers' metaphors, this book is particularly disappointing in that it is built around the kernel of a much more promising work that really shouldn't have deigned to stoop to the silliness exhibited by both the New Athiests and their detractors.

Krauss, like all good writers of popular science, has an infectuous enthusiasm for his field of knowledge. He also has a fairly good eye for compelling detail and an ability to take very complex concepts and present them in a manner that is lucid and accessible to those of us without advanced degrees in physics. That said, there is nothing in this book that will be particularly new to the avid reader of popular science. Even the title theme (a universe rising up from "nothing") was covered, though in somewhat less interesting detail, in Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow's The Grand Design. And like that work, this present book suffers from the author's attempts to wade into the waters of philosophy and metaphysics, in which he quickly finds himself out of his depths.

The book's subtitle (Why There is Something Rather than Nothing) is a bit misleading, in that this question is not actually addressed by the book. Or, it is addressed, but only through a bit of semantic sleight-of-hand, by which Krauss sets his own terms for what he means when he uses the word "nothingness" and then goes on to explain not only how something can come from "nothing" but how it could well be that something must come from "nothing." All of which is quite interesting in its own right. Unfortunately, Krauss tries to pass this off as equivalent to the metaphysical question as to why their is something rather than nothing (to be honest, it is difficult to tell if Krauss is being disengenuous here or simply sloppy in his thinking). With regard to Krauss's concepts of "nothingness," one can't help but recall one of the best-known lines from The Princess Bride: "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

In short, A Universe from Nothing would likely have been a better, more focused book had it contented itself with being a work of popular science exploring some of the more fascinating things that physicists are discovering about the emergence and ultimate fate of our universe. That it attempts to also situate itself in the growing canon of popular books on atheism feels like a tacked-on marketing ploy. And such a ploy is the only thing that can explain the unfortunate inclusion of the Afterword by Richard Dawkins, which is so obsequious and hyperbolic in its barely-pubescent fanboy glee that I am not sure who should be more embarrassed - Dawkins for having written it, or Krauss for making himself look like a self-congratulatory schmuck by allowing it to appear in his book.

[Melki · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yeah, yeah - probably 90% of this went whooshing over my head, but it's always nice to be reminded of just how great it is to be made of star stuff, and to have had a teeny-tiny, infinitesimal place in this fantastic, mind-boggling universe of ours.

[فهد الفهد · Rating 3 out of 5]

كون من لا شيء

تركني هذا الكتاب بذات الحيرة التي بدأته بها، يبدو العنوان واعداً، كيف يكون هناك كون من لا شيء؟ عندما تمت الإجابة على الأسئلة الكونية والفيزيائية بإعادة كل شيء إلى لحظة الانفجار الكبير، كان السؤال التالي هو كيف ولماذا؟ من أين جاءت المادة التي خلق الكون من انفجارها؟ لا يخصص كراوس لأطروحته إلا الصفحات الخمسين الأخيرة فقط، ويتركنا تائهين وخاصة غير المتخصصين، لأننا نكتشف أن (لا شيء) ليست (لا شيء) اللغوية، وإنما هي (لا شيء) فيزيائية، وهي أمر آخر تماماً يلخصه كراوس بقوله في الصفحة 194:

"يمكن أن يبزغ شيء ما من الفضاء الفارغ على وجه الدقة، لأن طاقة الفضاء الفارغ النشطة، في حضور ووجود الجاذبية، ليست ما يهدينا له الحس العام، قبل أن نكتشف القوانين الخفية للطبيعة".

ثم يقول بعد سطور:

"إن الملاحظات العلمية بأن الكون مسطح، وأن قيمة طاقة الجاذبية النيوتنية تساوي بالضرورة صفراً، تطرح بقوة اليوم أن كوننا انبثق خلال عملية شبيهة بالتضخم، وهي العملية التي تتحول بها طاقة الفضاء الفارغ (لا شيء) إلى طاقة (شيء ما)".

وفي الحوار الملحق بالكتاب يجيب كراوس على سؤال (ماذا تعني حقاً بـ لا شيء؟) بقوله:

"قد تكون حالة اللامادة ليست اللاشيء بالمعنى الكلاسيكي، ولكنه تحول رائع مع ذلك، لهذا فإن الشكل الأول من اللاشيء هو الفضاء الفارغ"

من هنا يمكن للاهوتيين أن يتنفسوا الصعداء، لأن السؤال التالي هو ومن أين جاءت طاقة الفضاء الفارغ والتي حسب كراوس تحولت إلى شيء وفق قوانين فيزيائية يرى أنها في حد ذاتها قد تكون عشوائية.

بقي أن أقول أن الكتاب ابتلي بترجمته العربية، وأنه من الأفضل قراءته بالإنجليزية لوضوح أكثر في الأفكار والمصطلحات.

[Book Shark · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you like my review please don't hesitate to like my amazon review too. I appreciate it...it's a wonderful book.


A Universe from Nothing by Lawrence M. Krauss

“A Universe from Nothing" is the fascinating book about how are universe came from nothing. Using the latest in scientific knowledge, his expertise and the innate ability to explain very complex topics in accessible manner earns this book five stars. Lawrence Krauss takes us on an exciting voyage of discovery that helps us understand the universe and further whets our appetite for more knowledge. This 224-page book is composed of the following eleven chapters: 1. A Cosmic Mystery Story: Beginnings, 2. A Cosmic Mystery Story: Weighing the Universe, 3. Light from the Beginning of Time, 4. Much Ado About Nothing, 5. The Runaway Universe, 6. The Free Lunch at the End of the Universe, 7. Our Miserable Future, 8. A Grand Accident?, 9. Nothing Is Something, 10. Nothing Is Unstable, and 11. Brave New Worlds.

Positives:
1. This book is truly something! A page turner.
2. A thought-provoking, inspirational quest for knowledge…I loved it!
3. A profound book that is intelligible. An achievement in its own right. Very complex topics accessible to the masses. Thank you.
4. Elegant prose with conviction. Lucid and clarity in a world of dark matter.
5. A journey of cosmological discoveries.
6. Effective use of charts and illustrations.
7. I have a much better understanding of our universe as a result of this book and most importantly it has only whet my appetite for even more knowledge…and that’s why I read.
8. A love affair with science and for good reason. The three key principles of scientific ethos.
9. Startling conclusions are presented. The author does a wonderful job of letting us know what we do know versus what we don’t know.
10. Some of the greatest discoveries presented.
11. I finally have a reasonable grasp of the Big Bang, Bazinga! The three main observational pillars.
12. Of course you will get to hear about the greats of science but I really appreciate the stories of the lesser known scientists who provided vital knowledge, such as, the story of Henrietta Swan Leavitt and Vera Rubin. Bravo!
13. Great facts spruced throughout the book and some jaw-dropping insight. One scientist was able to defend his mother in a witchcraft trial…find out whom.
14. What general relativity tells us.
15. The uses for gravitational lensing. Let’s get Zwicky with it.
16. Dark matter and dark energy…enlighten me. Or at least try.
17. Quantum mechanics, I will never understand it but I can appreciate it what it provides.
18. The author does a good job of telling us what scientific progress has been made and how that applies to cosmology.
19. A flat universe?? Find out.
20. An explanation of nothing that means something to me. Can you say quantum fluctuations?
21. A “creator” in proper perspective. The requirement of some externality. Read it and you will understand.
22. Multiverses…oh my.
23. String theory a critical view.
24. A little bit of philosophy for good measure.
25. The best explanation for how something can come out of nothing to best current knowledge available.
26. Key concepts will now become part of your understanding…”the existence of energy in empty space”.
27. Black holes under the light and some very interesting takes.
28. Spoiler alert…one of the most profound questions, “What I want to know is whether God had any choice in the creation of the universe.” Thank you, Mr. Einstein.
29. An interesting look at Aristotle and the First Cause in the light of new knowledge.
30. The book ends with a bang of reality.

Negatives:
1. No links or bibliography.
2. A lot of the concepts of this book are hard to grasp. Some readers may not have the patience and inclination to take the time to properly digest what is being offered. That being said, the author does wonders in making such difficult concepts accessible.

In summary, this is a fantastic book, a real treat. I learned so much and admire the author for providing a book that is accessible and enjoyable to the masses. This book lived up to my expectations. Fascinating topics in the hands of a master results in a captivating book. This is how science books should be written. I can’t recommend this book enough!

[Karl-O · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 Stars

The idea of a an Unmoved Mover or better still a First Cause is fascinating. Just to think that everything has a cause(s) which itself has a cause(s) takes one to a journey backward which we may well be ill equipped to take. This book didn't do much in that domain however, but it rather explained our recent understanding of the cosmos and how from "nothingness" (though with quantum fluctuation which makes the whole idea of Krauss' "nothingness" problematic) a whole universe can come into existence. Frankly, I couldn't help finding the title inappropriate . However, it helped to clear some misunderstandings that I had about the multiverse and the inflation, though the examples he used were not-so-brilliant.

But, I was disappointed with the book because it made serious attacks against philosophy which in my view were unfounded or at best irrelevant especially that he mentions in this very book how Einstein (apparently one of his heroes) was influenced by Spinoza. Sean Carroll beautifully put it while commenting on Krauss' attacks on philosophy:

"The point of philosophy is not to be “useful” to science, any more than the point of mycology is to be “useful” to fungi".

[Max · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found Krauss’s book totally engaging. His style is challenging but not overwhelming. His arguments for how the universe was created from “nothing” were convincing. The critical term is “nothing”. What nothing is may seem obvious, but Krauss shows us why it isn’t. He takes us back to the very beginning, the Big Bang. How did it start: Quantum fluctuations, false vacuum or just a potentiality? So something if no more than physical rules for the event to originate seem to have existed. Although Krauss suggests that these rules or potentialities could also have spontaneously arisen. But there is no reason to believe that such spontaneous eruptions are a onetime event.

This brings us to the multiverse spawned from continually bubbling inflation or existing in other dimensions such as those described by string theory. Another answer is God. Like Krauss I am not a fan of what he calls “God of the gaps”, the insertion of God to explain things we don’t understand in the physical world. Any explanation would have to invoke the eternal to avoid the question of First Cause. The author brought up Aristotle’s idea that God is eternal pure thought who did not create the world and does not intervene. Of course, Aristotle’s idea would not be compatible with today’s major religions.

Krauss discusses many other issues. He offers a detailed explanation of why our universe is flat and why that is important to us. He digs into what are perhaps the two biggest mysteries - dark matter and dark energy. We don’t know what they are. If particles responsible for dark matter could be discovered, the Big Bang and the universe’s future might be clarified. Dark energy provides another take on nothingness, in this case empty space. Quantum mechanics dictates that there is no such thing. It is filled with virtual particles that come and go too quickly to track but impart energy to space. This dark energy maintains the energy density of space as it expands while the density of ordinary matter diminishes overwhelming gravity. Thus over trillions of years the universe will dissipate into an amorphous sea of particles, a fate that clearly disturbs the author. Perhaps a better understanding of dark energy would lead to a different outlook.

Krauss painstakingly makes the case for his beliefs. I found myself going back and reading many sections again to get to the bottom of his arguments. The depth of this book made it an enjoyable process. Even though I have read about these topics before, Krauss’s explanations were enlightening. A casual reader could benefit picking up the gist of Krauss’s views, but I think this book will be appreciated the most by the reader with a deep interest in the subject. So for me a clear five stars.

[Alex J. O'Connor]

A great book outlining the history of cosmology. I found it got a little hard to follow near the end, but cleared up for a satisfying conclusion. It regularly hints at Krauss' atheism, which although is perfectly justified I feel may alienate agnostic or theistic readers. I wouldn't recommend this book to anybody who has no interest in physics whatsoever, as you'll be introduced to new concepts that require a bit of thinking. If, however, you are a science enthusiast of any kind, this book is a must have.

[Bernhard · Rating 3 out of 5]

As the title of this book says, Lawrence Krauss wants to convince us that the Universe came from nothing, without the need of a Creator. It’s a good book, even if his argument for why there is something rather than nothing isn’t completely convincing.

In the first half of the book, Krauss demonstrates how scientists have obtained observational evidence related to the expansion and flatness of the Universe, as well as the existence of both dark matter and dark energy, among others. Krauss mixes some stories in these sections and I thought that the chapters concerning these ideas were the best of the book.

He then proceeds to showing the consequences of these discoveries, namely how they could indicate that our Universe came from nothing. These include, for example, the net gravitational energy being very close to zero, therefore requiring no energy input, which could lead to the existence of a Universe filled with matter and radiation as a consequence of the energy of empty space.

Later in the book, I thought that he performed quite a bit of hand waving when it came to the topic of how spacetime might have come into existence out of nothing, namely through quantum processes. Additionally, Krauss assumes that the principles of quantum mechanics are just there, they just exist from the start. And he actually admits to this as a potential flaw near the end of the book. As a result, I don’t believe he was as clear and convincing as he might have thought.

The argument of how something came into existence out of nothing is a bit stretched, with Krauss referring that experimental data about the evolution of the Universe has removed the need for a Creator. I thought that Krauss was slightly unreasonable and biased at times, even if he had some genuinely interesting things to say about our understanding of the Universe.

[BetseaK · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book failed short of my expectations. The subject was interesting but its exposition lacked clarity due to inconsistencies of all kinds. Regarding the semantic ones, allow me to paraphrase the author: There is no such thing as 'nothing' because 'nothing' is 'something', namely 'nothing' is 'empty space' that is not really empty but 'a boling brew of virtual particles that we cannot see directly'. And, though nothing can travel faster than c, about 70% of that seemingly empty space, termed as 'dark energy', carries the visible galaxies apart from each other at superluminal speed.
As for other inconsistencies and flaws, let me name just a few:
The references to equations with no equations were of no help for better comprehension.
Though it was clear to me that the author was trying to explain the contradictory estimates of the geometry of the observable universe by measuring its curvature directly versus assessment of its mass density, the presentation and the pertinent illustrations for the closed, open and the so-called 'flat' universe left me baffled and made me re-read the relevant explanation in The Perception of Space... and its Measurement.
I felt forced to google for somewhat clearer explanation of the mystery of 'dark matter' versus 'dark energy'.
The intriguing hypothesis that the Big Bang resulted from a quantum fluctuation left me craving for a better exposition, too.

On the plus side, bearing in mind that I haven't read many books on cosmology, I found the book informative. I learned about some engrossing facts, including the pioneering work of the American astronomer Vera Rubin and her colleagues in the early 1970s, the BOOMERANG experiment in 1997 and the WMAP experiment in 1997, and a few more.

As for the parts against the existence of God, if I were a theist I would find the author's arguments unconvincing.

[Bettie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Description: A wildly popular lecture now on YouTube has attracted almost a million viewers. One question in particular has been at the center of religious and philosophical debates about the existence of God, and it's the supposed counterargument to anyone who questions the need for God. As Krauss argues, scientists have, however, historically focused on other, more pressing issues such as figuring out how the universe actually functions, which can ultimately help us to improve the quality of our lives.

In a cosmological story that rivets as it enlightens, pioneering theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss explains the groundbreaking new scientific advances that turn the most basic philosophical questions on their heads. One of the few prominent scientists today to have actively crossed the chasm between science and popular culture, Krauss reveals that modern science is addressing the question of why there is something rather than nothing, with surprising and fascinating results. The staggeringly beautiful experimental observations and mind-bending new theories are all described accessibly in A Universe from Nothing, and they suggest that not only can something arise from nothing, something will always arise from nothing.

That grrramazon description rather defeats the need for the book - watch out! Bezos and his lucre hunting cronies will be after you...

Yep - I've dumped the audio book and opted for the youtube lecture instead.

Had great fun with this: recommended.

[Derek · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this book very frustrating.

In the first place, Krauss spends far too much time God-bashing, instead of just sticking to the science. Fine, he doesn't believe that God created the universe, but there's absolutely no good reason to even bring it into a discussion of how our universe has been created from nothing.

In any case, ultimately, his arguments seem no better than a belief in a supreme being as creator. Krauss waves his hands and tells us that most of the universe consists of "Dark Matter" (fairly easy to believe, as it is simply matter that we can't detect with current instruments), and "Dark Energy" (a seriously kludgy substance that exists purely to make physical theory match observed reality, via the "Cosmological Constant"). How is it that if we believe in God, we're credulous cretins, but if we believe in Dark Energy we're "scientists"?

He even had the nerve to introduce Occam's Razor. If we are to use the Razor, perhaps we shouldn't jump so blindly on the Cosmological Constant bandwagon — a part of Einstein's General Relativity that he seriously regretted, and considered an error.

Now, my knowledge and understanding of physics is probably about as good as it gets for someone without a degree in physics, and I didn't have too much trouble following the science in the book — but it was hard enough that it can hardly be considered as being a book for the layman (that is, the science is far harder than A Brief History of Time). Perhaps he could have provided arguments that would convince me, but if so, the book contains too little physics to convince anyone of his case, and too much for most readers to follow.

[Amy · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was half academic circle jerking and half wannabe Dawkins posturing.

1. I was too dumb to understand the majority of the nitty gritty science. You can tell me that the universe is flat based on geometry and I'll believe you; you're just wasting my time if you try to impress me with equations.

2. Knowing that I'm too dumb for this book made me wonder who he was writing it for. I'm not unintelligent, even if my background is in English and not in physics. There's just enough raw science in here that I'd think a layman would be confused and just enough simplistic analogies that say he's writing for the layman, after all.

3. Half of the time is spent nodding at his colleagues' work, his own work, and the "silly" work of others in misguided fields. There's a long sojourn where he talks smack on string theory. It's some of the most condescending writing I've seen. He tries to say he still respects them, but for every "String theorists are intelligent men and women" concession, he'll follow it up with a "So just let them have their little vain moment in the sun" comment. I'm not interested.

4. Can't stress enough how much of this book is just "I know that important guy" and "I was the one who organized the conference where that dude spoke" and "My work on ____." Is this a book for the masses or an excuse for you to flout your CV, Krauss?

5. I am not one to feel offended when someone tries to prove there isn't a god. I'm the person who goes out and buys Dawkins so I can better argue against churchgoers. But I did not pick up this book for a philosophical debate about the existence of God. It's not what I wanted. Say your piece, Krauss, and if you want to go full Hitchens and outline why God doesn't exist, then write a different book. His arguments felt completely out of place.

6. Let me summarize:

The universe is still expanding. In a trillion years, anyone's who's alive in the universe will not be able to see beyond their own galaxy. They'll think they're alone and anyone who suspects otherwise will not be able to prove it. We live in a special time, a small (relatively speaking) window of roughly a billion years where we can trace the origin of the Big Bang, know that we are one of many billion galaxies, and are able to study starstuff that will eventually cease to exist.

It is postulated that the universe will end as it began: by one day jumping from one state to another. One day, it will cease to exist. There is something now. There will be nothing later. But, because it's been proven (or the possibility is so dramatically high that it's practically proven) that you can create something from nothing, who's to say another Big Bang won't happen when our universe dies? It could. It might not. It probably will. The cycle would begin anew. However it all ends, it will be mathematically beautiful.

That's it. That's all you need to know. Thank me for saving you hours of your life.

[Daniel Villines · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading A Universe from Nothing was like being invited over to Lawrence Krauss’ home for a dinner party with his colleagues. The prospect of the invitation is very exciting, but the conversation at the dinner table does not drop down to the lowly level needed for full comprehension by a mere civil engineer.

I appreciated the contents of the book. The journey that the science of our universe has taken over the past 500 years is outlined within the chapters. It was nice to have all the major discoveries touched upon in one place, culminating with the strange and exotic behaviors of seemingly empty space. But this complete journey may have also been the problem. There was not enough time (and probably desire) for Krauss to painstakingly transform the science into analogies that could be understood by the non- astro/particle physicists sitting at the table, which are his readers!

Beyond the science, there is also a bit of condescension towards those that would rather look towards the spiritual aspects of our being (i.e. God) for all of the answers to all of the questions that science is trying to answer. In every science-related book that I’ve read, there are always questions as to why humans, with their capability to reason, would choose to not use their inherent gift. Carl Sagan wrote an entire book on the subject with his The Demon-Haunted World. Krauss, however, takes it one step further. While still short of being belligerent, he does cross the line where acceptance ends. While the condescension felt somewhat prickly under my skin, I also thought this could be indicative of our possible collective future. A future where science rises up to become the last religion that humans will ever need.

[Tanja Berg · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book surprised me with its readability. I didn't feel like I was an average 5th grader taking a university course in physics ALL the time, although I do admit that somethings were above my head. If I ever want to learn anything outside of my current capability, obviously it's not going to come easy. This was very accessible though.

"Quantum fluctuations, which otherwise would have been completely invisible, get frozen by inflation and emergy afterward as density fluctuations that produce everything we can see! If we are all stardust, it is also true, if inflation happened, that we all, literally, emerged from quantum nothingness". (p.98)

The other startling conclusion is that we live in a day and age where it is still possible to measure evidence of the Big Bang and light can still travel from galaxy to galaxy. A few trillion years down the line, this will not be possible. It will only be possible to know about the mega-galaxy that the cluster the Milky Way belongs to will have merged with. The other galaxies and stars will have sped away from us, beyond an observable distance. Well, I never thought of that before!

I am quite bothered by light pollution, but not enough to regularly travel into the wilderness and look at the stars. I should take the time. Ponder the fact that we live in a special time, when the mysteries of the universe can still be considered, theorized about and proven by observation. I haven't seen the Milky Way since I was 10 years old, much less any smudge of a galaxy which isn't the one I live in. My knowledge of the sky is limited to the ability of telling stars from planets, but that doesn't deter me from enjoying it.

[Sarah ~ · Rating 4 out of 5]

كون من لا شيء - لورنس كراوس .

الفكرة الأساسية للكتاب أكثر من مثيرة للإهتمام ..
تُختصر الفكرة الرئيسية بنشوء الكون من لا شيء أو من فضاء فارغ .
وكلتا النظريتان تنتهيان بنفس الشاكلة وإن اختلفت الزمن التي تستغرقها العملية النهائية .
هذا الكون نشأ من العدم وإلى العدم مآله.
الفكرة بحدّ ذاتها قد تبدو من وجهة نظر ما عبثية للغاية، ولكن بالنسبة للكاتب والفيزيائي لورنس كراوس فإن نشوء كون من لا شيء وبدون غاية تبدو مدهشة للغاية .
لكن دعونا لا ننسى أن هذه الإجابة ليست نهائية وقاطعة وأن العلم يتغير
ويتجدد كل يوم وتتغير مداركنا ووعينا بكوننا وبكل ماحولنا
وتتغير المعادلات والنتائج ومن الواضح كذلك أن أيامنا هذه هي أفضل الأوقات للحصول على مزيد من الأجوبة عن كوننا وكيف نشأ ... إلخ ..
هذا الكتاب كتبَ بلغة آسرة ومليئة بالشغف ما يجعله مختلفًا ومن كتبي المفضلة .

[Stuart · Rating 3 out of 5]

My understanding of this book perfectly traced the arc of the Big Bang and expanding universe. An initial burst of inspiration followed by a rapid expansion of ideas about quarks, quantum mechanics, general relativity, dark matter and dark energy, and then a sudden reversal and contraction as the book strays from the fascinating early ideas and collapses in a chaotic discussion of how science and reason are not compatible with religious beliefs (anyone who is reading this book is probably already in that camp), and how the various schools of thought among cosmologists are constantly shifting as more experiments, data, and theories are digested and debated. In particular, the discussion of string theory was too precursory given the complexity of that admittedly difficult and abstract line of thought.

In the end, I was left with a sense that the true origins of the universe remain a mystery, particularly the question of whether quantum fluctuations in a vacuum really could trigger a Big Bang and our current universe (or multiverses if you prefer that theory), along with the related question of whether the current laws of physics have always been a constant or whether they could have developed differently in other universes, what were the initial conditions that existed before the singularity occurred (of course there was likely “nothing” since at that point there was supposedly no time or space), and finally the idea that our knowledge of the universe will actually fade in the future as the universe expands to the point where all galaxies will become too distant from each other even for light to reach each other, and may eventually collapse back into themselves. And all along I just though it was “turtles all the way down”.

In the early and middle part of the book, which I liked best, Lawrence Krauss describes the Big Bang, namely the singularity in which quantum fluctuations in a vacuum before space and time existed led to a sudden and exponential expansion in the universe, in which a slight imbalance between matter and antimatter allowed for the eventual formation all the matter and galaxies, stars and planets that we can now observe in the visible universe. And by studying the redshift of distant galaxies, we can also measure their distances and test various theories about whether the universe is open (forever expanding), flat (perfectly balanced in its present state), or closed (will eventually stop expanding, reverse course, and contract back into a singularity). Krauss also discusses CMBR (cosmic microwave background radiation) and how it reveals the initial conditions of the early universe. This is by far the most interesting and accessible part of the book.

To sum up, although the book is promoted as an accessible book discussing the origins of the universe from nothing, I would say it was only partly successful, and mostly in the early going. I also read Stephen Hawking’s A Briefer History of Time and The Grand Design (both written “with” Leonard Mlodinow) earlier and found the former to be a more understandable beginners approach, but the latter to be so watered down for the average Joe interested in quantum theory (wonder how many of them are out there) as to be somewhat insulting. I still have on the TBR shelf Brian Green’s The Elegant Universe and Lee Smolin’s The Trouble with Physics, with the former being a major proponent of string theory and the latter being a debunking of that whole school of thought, but I wonder if that will just confuse me further.

I’m still looking for the right balance of clarity, accessibility, and readability to improve my understanding of concepts that boggle even the most brilliant scientific minds out there, but am starting to think that this is really asking way too much of any one book. If anyone has any suggestions, especially Manny or Brendon, I’m receptive.

[Jana Light · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a difficult book to review. On one hand, Krauss is an enthralling and clear science writer. He gives great descriptions of how the universe works, about conditions in the early moments in the universe that led to what we see today, and (my favorite, because it was new to me!) what the very old universe will look like and how it will be in a state that will make any observers assume the universe is the way humans actually thought it was back in the 1800s. (!!) This was all interesting, fun, wild stuff.

On the other hand... wow. Simply put, Krauss frames his entire book as doing something he does not, and in fact cannot, do. His entire premise is that he is showing how the universe came into existence from Nothing, but unfortunately this is a question outside the realm of science. It is philosophy, and in most ways it is pure speculation. Everything Krauss claims to be "nothing" -- "empty" space, the bits right before the Big Bang instantiated space itself, etc. -- are nowhere near the definition of "Nothing" that is at the heart of the question he claims to tackle and claims to answer. Certainly, not the Nothing that philosophy starts with (philosophers are much more careful and precise about their terms). Krauss redefines the concept to fit what he wants it to be and what will help him "prove" his argument, rather than honestly confronting the real question. It was very disappointing.

Now, if Krauss had set out to demonstrate that the universe can operate, from its initial starting "stuff," without the intervention of a supernatural Being, then Krauss did so. Excellently and fascinatingly. But instead, since he set out to answer a question science is not equipped to answer, I cannot give the book the stars this truly excellent science writing deserves.

Another huge problem for me: throughout, Krauss dismissed and almost mocked philosophy, undermining its legitimacy as a form of inquiry. Despite that, he insisted on engaging (poorly) in philosophy through at least half of the book. You cannot dismiss a tool of inquiry and then use it -- poorly, without understanding how to use it properly -- to make your point. I kept thinking things like "stay your lane," "respect the fields you don't know," and "by the way, it's cheating to move the goalposts."

As a book on science, this was quite good. I learned a lot, reinforced or recalled other things I had learned from other laymen physics books, and found many new questions to ask my physicist husband. As a book purportedly answering -- answering!! -- the question of "Why is there something rather than Nothing?", it is almost offensively and laughably bad.

[Becky · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Stars:
Yeah. So. I read this. Or, rather, I listened to it. Which, in hindsight, may not have been the best choice. *insert forced/awkward laugh here* You see, this is not what I expected at all. Well, I take that back. This was what I expected, but the ratios were quite a lot different than I expected. (You know, that whole 'reading summaries' thing I don't do? Probably would have helped there.)

My point is that, had I done some research and maybe found out what this book actually was going to be, I'd have read a copy of it instead of listening to the audio, and probably got a lot more out of it. But, I totally blame myself for this, because this 'not reading summaries/reviews' thing is a habit I've gotten into in order to come to every book with an open mind, which sometimes backfires on me.

So anyway. I listened to this, and I say that it probably wasn't the best way to experience this book because I'm not an auditory learner, and there was a TON of information in this book that I just could not follow in this format. I fully admit that while I found the information in this book to be extremely interesting, most of the explanatory technical stuff went WHOOSH! right over my head. I do much better when I can see and peruse and absorb data visually than when hearing it, especially for technical or complex information and ideas, of which there was a lot in this book. A LOT. (Even better is if there are pictures of said complex info. Colorful ones. With descriptions and arrows and thingies.)

This book explains how something can come from nothing. (Or rather "Nothing", a distinction that I'm still unclear about. I don't feel THAT bad about this ignorance disclosure, though, because it seems that "Nothing" is a constantly evolving concept.) This concept, something from nothing, is very intriguing to me because I am curious to know how things form and start their paths to nowness. I also like to know how things end, though not quite as much, because that starts me thinking about how I'LL end - not nearly as fun a concept. This little passing interest of mine isn't like a fixation or anything - but if I find something interesting, I usually want to start at the beginning, or at least find out what the beginning was to give the history context.

So, in that way, this book was very interesting. It was cool to learn more about the make-up of the universe, and the possibilities of the multi-verse, and the projected future-history of the universe, which is bleak and kinda depressing, but still fascinating, if just for the fact that it's changed my perspective on the future. I mean, I'd always imagined that science will continue to evolve and that we'll make more and more discoveries of the universe, but our window of observation is finite - after a couple trillion years, that literally won't be possible because the expansion of the universe will cause the observable light we can see today to shift so far on the light spectrum as to become invisible. (Or aliens will eat it, or something. I might need to re-read that bit. Gosh, this book was so technical!) And then the universe, like everything, will eventually end.

I also enjoyed the overviews of how great scientific minds have formulated theories or made discoveries that have changed the course of science. I liked that there was a wide range of theories and aspects of science discussed in this book, and I won't even pretend to pretend that I understood it all, but it's intrigued me to want to read more... though hopefully more accessible for the non-cosmologists/physicists/scientists/PhD'd among us (that's me, FYI). Preferably with pictures.

We'll start here:


...and build from there. :D

[Clif Hostetler · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book pauses with sufficient frequency during its romp through science from particle physics to astrophysics to take pokes at theistic religion to make it clear that the author's intention is to cast a shot across the bow of "God of the gaps" thinking which seeks refuge in the question, "Why there is something rather than nothing." The author explains that phenomenal progress has been made in the past century that has brought us to the cusp of operationally addressing questions regarding origin, current condition and ultimate fate of our cosmos.

The book describes how in the process of pursuing these questions the very meaning of these questions has evolved along with our understanding of the universe. The recent findings that the dominate part (99%) of the universe is made up of material we can't see (i.e. dark energy and dark matter) has changed our distinction between something and nothing. After sighting examples from quantum physics and astrophysics that show; (1) particles appearing from nothing, and that (2) empty space is not "nothing" (it's a quantum field), the author proceeds to show that "nothing" is an unstable condition thus "something" was inevitable.

As with most recent physics, these explanations are not all that easy to comprehend, and beyond my ability to accurately summarize in a book review such as this. If you're interested to pursuing this subject further I recommend this YouTube Link that provides a 50 minute lecture by the author that generally covers the first ten chapters of this book. The final four chapters explores a variety of possible concepts of the universe and/or multiverses.

I was fascinated to learn how controversial and uncertain the definition of "nothing" was. For scientists empty space--what formerly could have passed for nothing--now has a new dynamic that dominates the current evolution of the cosmos. Some contentious theologians on the other hand have insisted that their concept of "nothing" is more profound than anything that a scientist might understand to be "nothing." They insist that a "nothing" that contains the potential for "something" can't be truly "nothing." The author counters that a "nothing" which contains the potential of creation is no less worthy than the theist's God who has the potential to create. My own observation is that a "nothing" with no God exudes nothingness more completely than a "nothing" than includes the existence of God.

"We have discovered that all signs suggest a universe that could and plausibly did arise from a deeper nothing--involving that absence of space itself--and which may one day return to nothing via processes that may not only be comprehensible but also processes that do not require any external control or direction. In this sense, science...does not make it impossible to believe in God, but rather makes it possible to not believe in God. Without science, everything is a miracle. With science, there remains the possibility that nothing is. Religious belief in this case becomes less and less necessary, and also less and less relevant. ... I believe that if we are to be intellectually honest, we must make an informed choice, informed by fact, not by revelation."

The following are my own musings, not necessarily from the book:
I think the author is needlessly critical of supersymmetric string theory. He admits that it is a mathematical model that rationalizes the relationships between subatomic particles using 10 dimensions, but he says it has never explained or predicted anything in particle physics. Well, maybe so, but I foresee a possibility that a version of string theory may end up providing the best possible model for dark energy and dark matter. Dark energy is apparently everywhere in our universe including under our noses. Since we can't see it I propose that it may have something to do with those seven unseen dimensions. And perhaps the dark matter may consist of strings with no vibration. (I suspect some readers will laugh at my thoughts. I don't care. Thinking up crazy ideas is fun.)

The following are two concepts that were new to me and that I learned from this book:

1. Faster than the speed of light?
If space expands at an ever increasing rate, it is possible for objects to move away from each other faster than the speed of light without violation of the theory of relativity. This is because the speed of light applies to speed through space, not space itself which has no limit on how fast it can expand. (i.e. Space does not obey the law of space-time.) If space itself expands at an increasing rate, eventually the expansion will exceed the speed of light and consequently light from the most distance stars will not be visible. This will lead to a condition in two trillion years when all stars that are not included within our local super cluster of constellations will not be visible to earth-like observers in our constellation. (It won't be earthlings doing the observing because our sun will burn out long before then.) This condition will erase all observable evidence of the big bang.

2. Changing ratio of dark energy to dark matter
The ratio of dark energy to dark matter has been changing as the universe expands. Early in the history of the universe the constant quantity of dark matter was more concentrated within the smaller universe and thus it was the dominate constituent. Dark energy is different in that it remains at the same concentration throughout the expanding universe and thus in the distant future will be the dominate constituent as dark matter becomes diluted by the expanded size of the universe. We currently live at a unique time in the history of the universe when both dark energy and dark matter are measurable. The author described this as a special time in history because it is the only time when we would be able to tell how special it is.

Wikipedia.com has articles on dark energy and dark matter for those interested in reading more.

[Jafar · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you’re looking for free lunch, think big. The universe itself may be the ultimate free lunch.

From a scientific point of view, this book is along the same lines as The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking. To summarize the book in two sentences: “In quantum gravity, universes can, and indeed always will, spontaneously appear from nothing. Such universes need not be empty, but can have matter and radiation in them, as long as the total energy, including the negative energy associated with gravity, is zero.” Nothing here is not just empty space; it’s the absence of space itself. One very important thing that Hawking avoided in his book, but Krauss struggles to address in this book, is that even if a universe can appear out of nothing, it does so according to the laws of quantum gravity. So it’s not nothing in its true sense, if you want to be finicky. We still need the laws that allow for the appearance of a universe out of nothing. (Don’t ask me what it means when space-time doesn’t exist but there are still laws that govern the nothingness.) He admits that this is still not easy to explain. Regardless, the book is a good survey of the latest in cosmology.

I didn’t like his frequent snide remarks at theologians. That’s uncalled-for in a science book.

[Diana · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book for a couple of reasons:

1) Krauss is one of those rare personalities that excel both in science (his successes are well documented) and teaching and by teaching I mean in a seductive (a word Krauss has used and you'll see how his language in the book can be seductive and almost flirty at times), entertaining way. This is something the world desperately needs as we seem to have slipped back as a society (even in places once much more rational like the United States) that believes the strangest non substantiated things. Our society really needs better fundamental science education. As I've heard Krauss say, a couple hundred years ago, you'd be considered illiterate if you did not know something about natural philosophy....how illiterate many are not knowing about fundamental science and by extension mechanisms of critical thinking and the scientific method.

2) The content, with a little work, can be easily grasped. Since it is devoid of math (because the math to describe the concepts in this book and the math that proves and makes predictable the content in this book requires a lot of training) it is accessible, especially if you are the sort of person that can grasp somewhat abstract concepts.

If you want to become more literate regarding how the universe began, how it will end and what is cutting edge in physics today, I highly recommend this book. If you are intellectually lazy - go ahead and read it anyway - you shouldn't be intellectually lazy. I'm saying this to shame you because we don't have time for lazy brains anymore.

I find it odd that people have criticized this book because it is anti religion. I was waiting for malicious statements and found none. Krauss simply presents what evidence has shown us: that it is less probable that a god is responsible for such things given that it is at least plausible that a universe can come from nothing albeit sometimes he makes a little joke at the expense of those who make ignorant statements. Maybe I'm just more tolerant and also enjoy the witty jokes.

Perhaps I am also in the minority for not seeing the cold death of the universe as terrible (though in the 90s when scientists were measuring the universe directly I did morbidly root for a big crunch)....I think this is perhaps because a lifetime of existential angst over my own mortality has hardened me to the mortality of the earth, solar system and by extension galaxies & universe I live in. Krauss titles this chapter "Our Miserable Future" because almost worse than our universe's cold death as space/time expands & galaxy clusters move away, intelligent beings will be less able to know the universe's true nature. More specifically, in the far future, physicists on other worlds (should they exist), will make inaccurate conclusions about the universe (as accurate as human conclusions 100 years ago). No more microwave background radiation to measure, no more evidence of the big bang. Oh well, too bad suckers! :) We're lucky to live when we live but maybe if we were smarter a bit earlier we would have been lucky then too.

Go ahead, treat your brain to this book - nothing is unstable :)

[Zahraa · Rating 4 out of 5]

لا ينبع الإلهام الحقيقي وراء تأليف هذا الكتاب من رغبة في طرد الاساطير او مهاجمة الاعتقاد ، بقدر ما ينبع من رغبتي في الاحتفال بالمعرفة .

نحتفل مع كراوس بالمعرفة المتراكمة في المئة عام الاخيرة التي غيرت وتغير نظرتنا للكون الذي وجدنا انفسنا فيه.
تبدأ قصتنا مع احتياج اينشتاين للثابت الكوني ليخرج بحل متسق مع الملاحظة لمعادلاته، وجميل رياضيا. فظهر لنا كون استاتيكي ذو هندسة مسطحة .
كشفت ارصاد هابل ان الكون في الحقيقة يتمدد وليس ثابتا، فتحولت الصورة الى كون مفتوح ، ذي تمدد ابدي، وما لبثت ان ارتدت مرة اخرى الى الكون المسطح بعد القياسات الدقيقة لاشعاع الخلفية الميكروني والذي عبر عنه كراوس "ضوء من اول الزمان" .
هكذا صار يقينا ان كوننا مسطح هندسيا ، وثابت اينشاتين الكوني ، الذي عده يوما أفدح أخطائه ، هو كمية الطاقة المظلمة التي تمثل 90% من الكون .
ما المميز في الكون المسطح؟
من بين ثلاثة الاشكال لهندسة الفضاء -المفتوح والمغلق والمسطح- الكون المسطح هو الوحيد الذي يمكن ان ينشأ فيه شيء من لاشيء!
هو الوحيد الذي تكون فيه طاقة الجاذبية النيوتونية صفرا .

إذن صرنا نعلم ان 99% من الكون فراغ -المادة المظملة والطاقة المظلمة -،حين نهبط الى المقياس الكمي ، نجد الحقيقة المدهشة والرائعة ان طاقة الفراغ لا تساوي صفرا بالضرورة ، مع وجود الجزيئات الافتراضية التي تظهر وتختفي على الدوام. وهكذا اختلف معنى اللاشيء بشكل ثوري .يخبرنا كراوس ان "البديهة " التي تنص على عدم امكانية انبثاق شيء من لاشيء لا توجد في العلم .
والمرجح ان كوننا انبثق بعملية تشبه التضخم ، حولت اللاشيء الى شيء ، فصار واضحا ان كوننا نشأ من لاشيء وسينتهي بلاشيء!

الكتاب ثوري وممتع ، واسلوب الكاتب طريف وشيق ، سيقضي الكتاب على اي فكرة بتميزنا في الكون قد كانت لك سابقا !

إننا نجد انفسنا نعيش على كوكب الأرض وليس على المريخ، وذلك ليس لان هناك شيئا ما عميقا وجوهريا في المسافة بين الأرض والشمس، بل لانه لو كان كوكب الارض على مسافة مختلفة من الشمس، لما كانت الحياة لتنشأ كما نعرفها وما كانت لتتطور على كوكبنا.
ربما يمكن حل كل ألغاز فيزياء الجزيئات بالتعويذة ذاتها: لو كان الكون على نحو آخر، لم نكن لنستطيع العيش فيه .