Before the Big Bang: The Prehistory of Our Universe

Simple isn't necessarily clear

Theoretical physicist and author Brian Clegg works hard in this book to summarize current theories of the origins of our universe for the widest and most general audience possible. Clegg, who is quite skeptical and critical of the Big Bang theory,the most widely accepted current set of ideas, effectively explains the origins and rationale of that theory. Clegg also reveals and questions some of the more restrictive and limiting ways in which the academic community of theoretical physicists, and "Big Science" in general, works to close ranks around an "accepted" set of theories in ways that can close down discussion prematurely,and his book is a commendable effort to expand and keep the full scope of debate alive.

Clegg very consciously uses the most straightforward and non-technical language possible, understandable given his intended audience, and this serves the book well in the early going. In the later chapters, however, as he ranges far and wide among increasingly far-out theories (The universe as a computer program, as a hologrammic projection), even simple explanations serve to distract and confuse. The reader, in those situations, is likely to think: It seems like I should be getting this, given the matter-of-fact tone and style; why am I lost? In fact, seemingly off-hand and brief explanations of utterly foreign notions, such as those that arise from quantum theory, are far from easily followed when applied to the nature, origins and ultimate fate of the universe itself.

Perhaps intentionally, perhaps not, Clegg reveals the almost pseudo-scientific nature of the current state of theoretical physics in repeated phrases such as "In principle," which are generally followed by nearly outlandish and imcomprehensible imaginings. In principle it seems, almost anything about the universe as a whole could be true, as long as it doesn't risk making any predictions that be supported, or disproven, by any observed or observable evidence. What such suppositions about the universe are good for is a question left unanswered, presumably because theoretical physicists really like their jobs and want to keep them and be taken seriously.

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