Martin Bojowald

On his book Once Before Time: A Whole Story of the Universe

Cover Interview of March 08, 2011

In a nutshell

Once Before Time explores questions about the nature of time and space, and whether or not they have a definite beginning.

Developments in physical theories (General Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, and attempts to combine them) have indicated that there is a deep connection between the history of the universe and the basic, microscopic nature of space and time, between the largest and the smallest scales.

In this book, I provide an exposition of Loop Quantum Cosmology, a detailed framework that has highlighted this connection, and its supporting arguments. Readers will be stimulated to fathom an unexpected link—the interplay between the big bang’s discrete atoms of space and the fundamentals of space and time.

The common myth of the big bang as the beginning of the universe and of time is based upon an illegitimate extrapolation of an incomplete theory.

The expansion of the universe out of an extremely dense state is supported by General Relativity, but a prehistory of the universe is not accessible unless quantum physics is considered, too. Reconciling General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics is a formidable challenge. It is considered the “holy grail” of contemporary cosmology. This problem keeps a large fraction of theoretical physicists occupied. And while a comprehensive theory of the universe is not yet available; this book attempts to provide an abbreviated snapshot of the endeavor’s current status.

science / physics / universe / cosmology / quantum mechanics / loop quantum cosmology / general relativity /

[T]he Holocaust transformed our whole way of thinking about war and heroism. War is no longer a proving ground for heroism in the same way it used to be. Instead, war now is something that we must avoid at all costs—because genocides often take place under the cover of war. We are no longer all potential soldiers (though we are that too), but we are all potential victims of the traumas war creates. This, at least, is one important development in the way Western populations envision war, even if it does not always predominate in the thinking of our political leaders.

Carolyn J. Dean,
Interview of February 01, 2011

The dominant premise in evolution and economics is that a person is being loyal to natural law if he or she attends to self’s interest and welfare before being concerned with the needs and demands of family or community. The public does not realize that this statement is not an established scientific principle but an ethical preference. Nonetheless, this belief has created a moral confusion among North Americans and Europeans because the evolution of our species was accompanied by the disposition to worry about kin and the collectives to which one belongs.

Jerome Kagan,
Interview of September 17, 2009