Battle of the Big Bang
The New Tales of Our Cosmic Origins · Niayesh Afshordi and Phil Halper
BOOK & MEDIA
The New Tales of Our Cosmic Origins
A guided tour through competing ideas about cosmic origins—from bouncing and cyclic universes to black-hole births, multiverses, holograms, and the possibility that the Big Bang was not the beginning.
Reviews and coverage
- The Wall Street Journal review — A Question of Origins ↗
- The Wall Street Journal — Five Best: Cosmic Origins and Endings (publisher excerpt) ↗
- Smithsonian Magazine — Ten Best Science Books of 2025 ↗
- Times Literary Supplement ↗
- Physics World ↗
- Publishers Weekly ↗
- Literary Review of Canada ↗
- Newcity ↗
- Library Journal ↗
- Popular Science Books ↗
YouTube talks and interviews
June 2026Audiobook Preview — Google Play Books ↗
November 2025Harvard Science Book Talk ↗
June 2025What Really Happened During the Big Bang? — Royal Institution ↗
August 2025What Came Before the Big Bang? — Alex O'Connor interview ↗
June 2025Public Lecture Livestream — Perimeter Institute ↗
April 2026The Big Bang May Not Be the Beginning: Time and Nothingness ↗
May 2026What Came Before The Big Bang? ↗
October 2025Has Science Just Proved God? ↗
September 2025Are We Wrong About the Big Bang? ↗
June 2025Was There Anything Before Us? ↗
May 2025Mindscape: The Big Bang and Before ↗
May 2025نبرد مهبانگ: روایتهای نو از خاستگاه کیهانی ما ↗
January 2025Peppering a Cosmologist with All My Questions ↗