**A DAILY TELEGRAPH BOOK OF THE YEAR 2022**

One of the world's most celebrated cosmologists presents her breakthrough explanation of our origins in the multiverse.

In recent years, Laura Mersini-Houghton's ground-breaking theory, spectacularly vindicated with observational evidence, has turned the multiverse from philosophical speculation to one of the most compelling and credible explanations of our universe's origins.

In Before the Big Bang, she interweaves the story of how she arrived at this theory with her journey from communist Albania, where she was born and brought up, to the West, showing how her unconventional path helped her to challenge orthodoxies and become one of the most courageous thinkers on the world stage of theoretical physics.

'Fascinating' Roger Penrose, Nobel laureate, and author of The Road to Reality

'There is no better guide to the bizarre, and sometimes paradoxical, cosmic super-realm than Laura Mersini-Houghton' Paul Davies, author of What's Eating the Universe?

'A fascinating and unusual hybrid of pop science and memoir' 5*, Stephen Poole, Daily Telegraph

'From one of the world's most renowned cosmologists ... a fascinating read' Stephon Alexander, author of Fear of a Black Universe

About the Author
Laura Mersini-Houghton is an internationally renowned cosmologist and theoretical physicist and one of the world's leading experts on the multiverse and the origins of the universe. Born in Albania when it was still under a communist dictatorship, she was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to study in the United States and is now a regular visiting professor at several universities around the world, including the University of Cambridge. She has been the subject of hundreds of articles in leading popular science magazines and has appeared in documentaries on the Science Channel, Discovery Channel and the BBC.

Reviews
A fascinating account -- SIR ROGER PENROSE, Nobel laureate
What if our universe, vast though it may be, is but an infinitesimal fragment of reality? What would this 'multiverse' be like? And how could we possibly test the idea? There is no better guide to the bizarre, and sometimes paradoxical, cosmic super-realm than Laura Mersini-Houghton -- PAUL DAVIES, author of What's Eating the Universe?
From one of the world's most renowned cosmologists, Before the Big Bang offers insights into the Big Bang and, beyond it, into the majestic world of a quantum multiverse -- STEPHON ALEXANDER, author of Fear of a Black Universe
A fascinating and unusual hybrid of pop science and memoir... The author's explanation of such exotic ideas is vivid and good-humoured, and much enlivened by tableaux from her education in Albania -- Stephen Poole * Daily Telegraph, 5* *
The age-old cosmological question of how and why the Big Bang happened has never been tackled with such aplomb * Daily Telegraph, *Books of the Year* *



Book Information
ISBN 9781847925510
Author Laura Mersini-Houghton
Format Hardback
Page Count 240
Imprint The Bodley Head Ltd
Publisher Vintage Publishing
Weight(grams) 436g
Dimensions(mm) 241mm * 163mm * 24mm