Before the Big Bang: The Prehistory of Our Universe

260 Pages·2009·1.22 MB·English

by  Brian Clegg

BEFORE THE BIG BANG
ALSO BY BRIAN CLEGG

Upgrade Me
The God Effect
A Brief History of Infinity
Light Years
BEFORE
THE BIG BANG
THE PREHISTORY OF OUR UNIVERSE

BRIAN CLEGG
ST. MARTIN’S PRESS NEW YORK
BEFORE THE BIG BANG. Copyright © 2009 by Brian Clegg. All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America. For information, address St. Martin’s
Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.stmartins.com

Book design by Gretchen Achilles

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Clegg, Brian.
Before the big bang : the prehistory of our universe / Brian Clegg.—1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN-13: 978-0-312-38547-7
ISBN-10: 0-312-38547-1
1. Cosmology. 2. Big bang theory. I. Title.
QB981.C627 2009
523.1—dc22
2008046035

First Edition: August 2009

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
DEDICATED TO THE CENTER OF MY UNIVERSE—
GILLIAN, CHELSEA, AND REBECCA
CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

1. BIG BANG PRIMER
2. ENTER THE CREATOR
3. WHAT AND HOW BIG?
4. HOW OLD?
5. A BANG OR A WHIMPER?
6. KEEPING THINGS STEADY
7. INFLATING THE TRUTH
8. LET THERE BE TIME
9. GROUNDHOG UNIVERSE
10. LIVING IN A BUBBLE
11. WELCOME TO THE MATRIX
12. SNAPSHOT UNIVERSE

Notes
Index
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to the many people who have provided information including Dr.
Marcus Chown, Professor Günter Nimtz, the librarians of Swindon Central
Library and the British Library, the Mullard Radio Astronomy Laboratory at the
University of Cambridge, and the organizers of the Andrew Chamblin Memorial
Lecture.
As always, this book would not have been possible without the help and
support of my editor, Michael Homler, and my agent, Peter Cox.
BEFORE THE BIG BANG
1.
BIG BANG PRIMER

The beginning of things must needs lie in obscurity, beyond the bounds
of proof, though within those of conjecture or of analogical inference.
—ASA GRAY (1810–88),
“Darwin on the Origin of Species” (The Atlantic Monthly, July 1860)

Welcome to the universe.
“The universe” is an awesome concept, one that belies the apparent simplicity
of the term. It’s everything, the whole of what’s out there, the sum total of
existence. We are part of that whole, yet the vast majority of the time we ignore
everything but our own tiny corner of it, the infinitesimal speck that is our
planet.
Since intelligent reasoning began, human beings have wondered about what
the universe is and from where it came. As we see later, all kinds of possibilities
were considered, but it wasn’t until the twentieth century that our current widely
accepted description of the beginnings of the universe—the Big Bang—was first
formulated.
The scientific curiosity that makes us wonder about the universe and where it
came from seems to be a natural human trait, although it is often suppressed by
peer pressure. All children have a sense of wonder when looking at the world
around us. They want to know why and how and what, sometimes asking these
questions so frequently that adults are driven to distraction. Sadly it’s not cool to
be interested in science in your teens, so for many that fascination in what’s out
there gets pushed to one side. But it’s still there, waiting to be uncovered.
There’s a good reason for this curiosity. As I describe in my book Upgrade