The Greatest Story Ever Told--So Far - Why Are We Here?

A truly heroic effort to compile a history of physics from the pre-Greeks to the present, at least the first part of which should be accessible to the educated reader who is willing to expend a little mental effort. By and large, the book is successful in setting forth the thinking of the early natural philosophers Democritus (460-370BC), Plato (427-347BC), Aristotle (384-322BC) and their contemporaries and in describing the importance of the ideas of Galileo (1564-1642), Newton (1643-1727), Faraday (1791-1867), Maxwell (1831-1879) and their contemporaries in creating the classical physics upon which the technologies of the modern world are largely based.

The physics of the 20th century [ the bending and stretching of space-time of Einstein (1875-1955)], [the quantum mechanics of Bohr (1885-1962), Schrodinger (1887-1933 ), Heisenberg (1901-1976), Dirac (1902-1984), Feynman (1918-1988) and contemporaries] and [the elementary particle physics of Gellman (1929-), Weinberg (1933-) and contemporaries leading to the Standard Model] is less intuitive, The 21st century physics of matter created in empty space by quantum fluctuations, multiple universes, reality as strings vibrating in multidimensions, dark matter and dark energy that we can’t measure making up 90+% of the universe, etc. is likely to be incomprehensible to most people, and the story of how it was patched together might even strike some as more faith-based than physics-based.

This is on the level of "Astrophysics for people in a hurry" by NDT. A fairly low-level book, which was disappointing, given Krauss's level of intellect and experience. Became bored about 1/4 of the way through, read another half, then put it down. Just wasn't for me.

This was amazing and beautiful I am holding back tears.
I've had the privilege of attending one of Professor Krauss' lectures on particle physics in person for the occasion of this book's launch. He's a fabulous orator so I greatly recommend this book as an audiobook.

This was an interesting discussion on the millennia of science and thought processes that have led from the philosophy of Plato's cave, to the new theoretical physic's research in dark energy and the start/end of our universe. Simple enough for a non-physics major and detailed enough to keep a science nerd hooked and awed.

Because of this book, I'm going to email my university tutor tomorrow about the possibility of doing a master's in a subject that will bring me closer to the physics and technology described in this book, so that I may live every day in the tearful wonder that I experienced reading this.

Science is awesome.

Disclaimer: I'm a computer science/engineering student so can't judge how understandable this book will be to none-scientist. I would say quite a lot, as Prof. Krauss draws great analogies, but I wouldn't know.

Terrific read. The language used was "poetic" and I love reading narrative descriptions of all things "quantum", etc. The math alone does not build a good picture or narrative. (However, the math is it's own "reality" - ooops, I'm referring to the math utilized in all areas of QM, NOT in the book

Very interesting, well narrated and awe inspiring book. Lawrence takes you for a run over the history of scientific achievement with passion and detail, ending with the answers of ultimate questions of humanity.

It seems to me that this book by Lawrence Krauss is trying to accomplish two things. One is a narrative history of physics and the major developments that led us to where we are today from Newton on. The other is to educate the reader so that it he at least has somewhat of an idea of what it's all about. An extremely light physics education to put it another way. Maybe that works for some people but I think you have to be really really interested in physics and want to understand it for this book to be completely successful. I consider myself an intelligent lay reader and I've read a number of popular science physics books before including others by Lawrence Krauss, but there were times he just lost me. I think I followed most of it, but I also just lost interest in all the details.

Of course to a physicist or to a physics student this is going to be super basic stuff. However, for a lay audience I just think he went too far into the physics. I super enjoyed the historical overview and I found myself towards the latter half of the book just skimming over the details and trying to take in the story and forget about the physics. So it all depends on what you want I guess. I can recommend the book as long as the reader knows what he's getting into and I did enjoy it for the most part. But I have to take a star off because I just think it tries to do too much and for a lot of people it's not going to be successful.

We got the CD version & I'm wondering if there was supposed to be an accompanying disk. It refers to diagrams & the like but this one came alone.

The first 4 chapters or so are interesting & then it gets more & more technical & complex. So maybe the diagrams are necessary to get the most out of it.

The book presents a reasonably interesting overview of the progression in our understanding of the origins and underlying nature of our universe from ancient times to the recent past. A justified very limited degree of credit is awarded to the contributions of the various forms of formulated string theories to this progress. In this reviewer's opinion, a serious omission in the volume is a discussion of the possible implications of a relatively new understanding of the meaning and implications of quantum mechanics provided by the "relational" interpretation of the underlying laws of physics put forth by Carlo Rovelli and some others. In this approach, every defined object in the universe, regardless of size or complexity, is considered to be a quantum mechanical system. No macroscopic distinction is considered to be meaningful. And most important, the state of any system in the universe is defined only in relation to another system in the universe. Thus, any system will generally have a different state in relation to each of the other systems in the universe at any given time. The universe as a whole will, of course, never have a defined state, since there is by definition no system outside the universe to which this state could be related. The approach also provides for the first time a very natural explanation for the failure of the EPR constraints to apply in the real world. But a more important question is also raised by this point of view regarding the "reality" of the objects in our universe. Since the states of all objects are defined only in relation to other systems in the same universe, there is no absolute reality for these objects. All reality is strictly internally consistent within a given universe, and whatever process is imagined to give rise to our universe could without any clear limit give rise to any number of totally disconnected universes. One is tempted to add "at the same time", but clearly time arises with each universe, and it is meaningless to compare times between universes. A final thought offered here is to consider the nature of the emergence of space and time within a given universe. We already understand that only the relativistic interval between events is absolute rather than relative, and that any two events connected by a photon interaction are separated in this way by a vanishing interval. But the only "long-range" interaction between elementary particles in our universe is the photon interaction. This suggests that there are no absolute separations (intervals) between events in our universe, and that the space-time extension of this universe is a mental creation that we (and others in our universe) use to provide a useful understanding of the relationships that effect our success and survival as self-recognized entities in this universe. It would be interesting to see how Prof. Krauss could integrate such ideas into his very interesting history of our understanding of reality.

Experts in art, religion, and science sometimes complement one another, ofttimes misrepresent one another, and now and then flat out war with one another. For reading on a recent trip to the Middle East, I purchased The Greatest Story Ever Told –So Far: Why Are We Here?, a new book by Lawrence M. Krauss. According to jacket notes, this book follows up the author’s best-selling book A Universe from Nothing, which I have not read. I highly recommend Krauss’s Greatest Story as both enlightening and challenging reading for anyone interested in actual physics and irritated by unsound spiritual spins on quantum fields by the likes of Deepak Chopra, Fritjof Capra, J.Z. Knight, or Gary Zukav. Krauss mentions Chopra as his “Twitter combatant” on page 86: “(Chopra) in his various ramblings, somehow seems to think the universe wouldn’t exist if our consciousness weren’t here to measure and frame its properties.”

Chopra, a physician with Western training, is also a product of an Indian pseudo-tradition since his early devotion to the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi who founded the Transcendental Meditation business. Yes, ancient sacred mantras were for sale in the 1960s through TM and still are. TM along with Scientology was one of the primary models for the burgeoning self-help spiritual enlightenment movements that employ a hefty pay scale for graduated courses masked as spirituality. At least the wealthy can get to heaven this way. Chopra’s spiritual services are not cheap, but you can always read his books to get a dose of his quantum consciousness preparations.

Happily, Krauss did not dwell on Chopra’s inane (to me) tweets beyond the brief mention above, but I did find it curious that Krauss repurposed religious ideas to frame the story of physics and its great scientists. Complementing the obvious book title reference to Jesus from “The Greatest Story Ever Told” by Fulton Oursler (1949), Krauss introduced nearly every chapter with a quote from the Bible. For example, Chapter 15: “Living Inside a Superconductor” is introduced with Everyone lies to their neighbor: they flatter with their lips but harbor deception in their hearts. – Psalms 12:2. With scripture, Krauss cleverly indicates how quantum behavior can be deceptive and contrary like people but with properties we do not fully comprehend. “…the apparent differences [in gauge theory] are illusions that do not reflect the underlying physics that determines the measured values of all physically observable quantities.” (p. 205) To grasp what that means, you will have to read the book. I am not sure that the general reader will—it helps to have a solid familiarity with physics to properly appreciate this book, although much of the narrative is about the scientists and their lives, not just their ideas.

On my flight home from Dubai, I took advantage of the movie selection and watched Finding Altamira, a 2016 film about amateur archeologist Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola who in 1879 was led by his eight-year-old daughter Maria to discover the now famous cave’s Paleolithic renderings of bison, hand silhouettes, and various creatures. Lauded as the Sistine Chapel of the cave man era, Altamira has fascinated artists, scientists, and religious scholars for more than a century. Picasso, who is quoted at the end of the film, stated:

“After Altamira, all is decadence. We have discovered nothing.”

I am not certain what Picasso meant by that beyond being his provocative self, but the artist may have a point. The Altamira paintings have a high level of sophistication for art created 35,000 years ago with primitive materials and on uneven surfaces. In other words, these are not extraordinary monkey scrawls—far from it—the average artist today would have difficulty matching that skill.

The significance of the cave art is yet unclear. Were they merely a form of graffiti executed by a bored Neanderthal virtuoso during a long winter? Did they have magical, ceremonial, or religious functions? Was this a way of honoring or living with the souls of the animals killed and eaten? Or were they illustrations to teach anatomy to youngsters? We can analyze the aesthetics, comparing Altamira to other cave paintings of that era to get a clearer idea of early human capacity for perception. It appears that the art at Altamira was not a one-off act of genius but a shared talent by many people in that culture at several locations. If that is the case, then there must have been a kind of school or training, but where are the practice images? We do not know. As an artist, I can see the cave art as scientific studies of how animals behave as well as renderings that serve as shrines to their very being that sacrificed its life to sustain human life. Pondering that exchange is at the core of many primitive religious movements or cults and not making a god in our image.

This brings me to the point of my commentary on Krauss’s book. Why is religion tied to physics in the book? Krauss throws a bone to religious people by cherry picking scriptures relevant to his narrative though taken out of context. In other words, it appears to me that he made little effort to respect the religious tradition. When he quotes Genesis 3:19 before his Epilogue, “Cosmic Humility,” (For dust thou art, and to dust shalt thou return), Krauss merely echoes the secular side of the Old Testament. Many practicing Jews were secularists. Consider the Sadducees who believed that this life is all there is with no hope of resurrection in a heaven. In that view, God, like the universe, interacts with His creation in enigmatic and often indefatigable ways. All I am pointing out here is that belief in the religions of the Bible is not of one kind, and it does not necessarily exclude a scientific perspective. But does aesthetics provide a key to resolve the dichotomy between science and religion?

The day after I wrote this question, I was reading Robert Frost and came upon this quote from his talk “On Extravagance” from an address he gave at Dartmouth College in 1962:

“And my extravagance would go on from there to say that people think that life is a result of certain atoms coming together, see, instead of being the cause that brings the atoms together.”

Frost, who was baptized a Swedenborgian but remained anxious about belief in God, harkens back to Aristotle’s idea of a final cause. For example, the idea of building a boat brings a series of events together starting from a tree growing in the forest to an illustration on a sheet of paper and a way to mill logs from the tree to match the illustration. The finished boat fulfills the final cause that attracted it into being. Aristotle did not call this final cause God, but St. Thomas Aquinas did.

Boats are human creations, but what about nature? Do natural phenomena emerge as if attracted to a final cause? Krauss tends to endorse the Darwinian model of chance events leading to zebras which have remained quite the same species for millennia. In other words, the Earthy muck that led to life and the emergence of species relied fundamentally on the inscrutable activities of subatomic particles and the forces that they are and that surround them. The rich flora and fauna on our precious planet are the result of this cosmic playground in the quantum world since the Big Bang. Intelligent Design and Creationist folks point to the apparently fixed and reliable aspects of complexities in nature as proof that something intelligent must be holding all this together—a lawgiver or a maker that controls order and chaos. The chances that two zebras mating will produce another zebra for the next thousand years or so is predictable, we think, whether we are careful scientists or Southern Baptists. One says that the probability is high; the other, that God wills it that way.

The notion of a final cause is also a religious belief that an uber being we call God has all of creation through eternity somewhere in His head, then goes about designing the universe to fit His plan. Krauss mentions that Einstein said, God does not play dice with the universe, but he shows that Einstein’s theories contradicted this: “It is ironic that Einstein, who started the quantum revolution but never joined it, was also perhaps the first to use probabilistic arguments to describe the nature of matter—a strategy that the subsequent physicists who turned quantum mechanics into a full theory would place front and center. As a result, Einstein was one of the first physicists to demonstrate that God does play dice with the universe” (p. 81). No argument from me there.

From my perspective, philosophers of science, scientists, and many theologians surmise that the cosmos operates under a complex interaction of probabilities. We have not been able to reduce reality to something tangible and testable, thus Krauss’s earlier book, A Universe from Nothing. Fundamentalism in science (reductionism) as in religion relies more on a pipe dream than on reality. However, the need to some certainty in science as in religion is necessary. Science has to trust that nature and natural forces are consistent enough to plan return trips to the moon. Religion has to trust revelation and moral codes enough to sustain social cohesion.

Krauss’s title fascinates me in a way that he probably did not intend. The Christian religion, with some similarities to other major faith groups, relies on a core belief that the source (Father) of all that is sacrifices Himself to sustain all that is. In other words, God has to become nothing through eternity for anything material to exist and for life to go on. This is a principle among many mystics including Jakob Boehme who called it that nothing the Ungrund:

"For out of nature is God a Mysterium, i.e. the Nothing; for from out of nature is the Nothing, which is an eye of eternity, a groundless eye, which stands nowhere nor sees, for it is the Ungrund and the selfsame eye is a will, i.e. a longing for manifestation, to discern the Nothing."

This mystery appears to be consistent with the thesis of The Greatest Story Ever Told—So Far: Why Are We Here? But the “nothing” that Krauss relies on is not a personal nothing. You might find the language I am using contradictory, but physicists have resorted to that same language when describing where quarks come from. Neutrons are particles that make up “most of the mass of our bodies” but they are “unstable, with a mean lifetime of about ten minutes” (p. 113). Krauss wrote, “This may surprise you too,” but he goes on to show the beauty of the resolution of this paradox by persistent physicists working toward a Grand Unified Theory and a Standard Model. The latter, Krauss tells us

“…results in the remarkable good fortune of an expanding universe with stars and planets and life that can evolve a consciousness, is also a simple accident made possible because the Higgs field condensed in just the way it did as the universe evolved early on.”

So, the why we are here answer in this book is not to honor and serve a deity. We are here because we are, as if by accident, no more significant than a world evolved in an ice crystal on a window pane (a metaphor offered by Krauss), a world that might easily disappear as a “Sun” (sic) rises. The contract of an atheist or purely scientific man with existence is to flourish as best he can because in the end he perishes: “If our future is similarly fleeting, we can at least enjoy the wild ride we have taken and relish every aspect of the greatest story ever told…so far.” (Krauss, p. 300)

Krauss did a good job describing the God problem for scientists and he did a noble job to avoid the God-of-the-gaps that too many naïve believers use to claim there must be a God because science cannot explain something. An example occurs on page 296:

“…the fact that current fundamental theory does not make a first-principles prediction that explains something as fundamental as the energy of empty space implies nothing mystical. As I have said, lack of understanding is not evidence for God. It is merely evidence of lack of understanding.”

This brings me back to Altamira and the Paleolithic cave paintings of bison. Are they about art, science, or religion? Could they be about all three? Did primitive man grasp reality better than we do, as Picasso suggested? Was the cave artist contemplating his existence by illustrating his food and clothing sources that kept him alive and warm?

Krauss wrote, “Faced with the mystery of our existence, we have two choices.

1. “We can assume that we have special significance and that the universe was made for us. For many, this is the most comfortable choice made by early human tribes, who anthropomorphized nature because it provided them some hope of understanding what otherwise seemed to be a hostile world often centered on suffering and death. It is the choice made by almost all the world’s religions…”
2. “The second choice when addressing these transcendental mysteries is to make no assumption in advance about the answer…In this story we evolve in a universe whose laws exist independently of our own being. In this story we check the details to see if they might be wrong. In this story we are going to be surprised at every turn.” (302-303)

Okay, we could overlook the false dichotomy of two choices, but should not. These are false because these are poorly framed choices and because there are more than two. I want to know what Krauss meant by “almost all the world’s religions.” I could give a reasonable argument that non-fundamentalist Christianity does not anthropomorphize God any more than science does. The finer interpretations of a deity in Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, and Hinduism avoid humanizing God to maintain the mystery of the infinite, the ineffable, and the unknowable—the “nothing” mentioned above entertained by Boehme’s mysticism and the No-Self of Zen Buddhism. Jews typically and reverently will not speak the name YHWH respecting that we not only have no words but we cannot properly grasp intellectually what we mean by that concept. Hindu tradition has taken to calling the deity Tat Tvam Asi or thou art that. At the most refined understanding, the gods or God as personality disappears in Advaita, one of the largest and most enduring Hindu traditions. I hope you get the idea. Choice one is way too simple.

As to the second choice, I want to know how science avoids anthropomorphizing nature. I mean, we do not experience and test nature from the skill set of a bee or a virus. I am not merely being cute here or relativistic. Bees construct amazing homes using specific engineering skills and have the science to support those skills. Bees analyze in bee ways how the universe works and apply their skills to survive. Bees have a culture in which they communicate through dance-like movements to indicate where the blooms are for nectar. Bees do this whether we observe them or not. Viruses seem to have a bizarre life of their own. They can kill and they might initiate newer, more complex life forms. We may be in a universe that evolves independently of Deepak Chopra and Lawrence Krauss, a universe that could care less than a wit about either of them, but that has no bearing on complex creatures like Deepak and Lawrence caring in their own ways about the universe. How they care may be wrong-headed or spot on, but the question Krauss does not answer is why do we care at all?

The obvious fact is that the universe has created creatures that care—a fact of reality, just as real as electrons with negative spin or the lately confirmed Higgs Boson. The greatest story ever told as Jesus teaches us to care because something he called “the Father” cared about him and us enough to empty Himself totally to sustain life as we know it. Jesus interpreted this insight as a mandate if he was to be the Christ anointed by God to be the sacrificial lamb.

After reading Krauss’s version of the greatest story, I do not see the suggested dichotomy or two choices. Krauss inadvertently reinforced in spades exactly what I see in the New Testament, albeit heretically. For some reason, neutrons care to decay and arise every ten minutes to keep us alive for a life time. If neutrons did not “care” or carry on the way they do, we would not be here. His book reminded me that we humans are cultivated at least metaphorically if not in fact by the subatomic worlds. Krauss insists that we grew out of subatomic particles and their interactions. Cult means to care for. Human beings might be one of the many cults attended to by the subatomic worlds. Why? Well, because they care to, or so it seems to me. Creating conscious life while caring for it at the expense of self-annihilation is a beautiful thing, even for a neutron. We all cry when the hero appears to sacrifice his life to save the heroine. We all cheer when the hero miraculously comes back to life.

I like to read popular science books and really looked forward to this book. And though I like reading philosophy (my undergraduate degree) and like Philosohpy of Science, this boom was just crummy philosophy. Through the first chapter I tried to just ignore it saying to myself that it wasn't fair to judge someone writing about physics based on their lack of understanding of Plato. But there is a limit to how long I am willing to read an author that thinks they know whay they are talking about continue to spout nonsense. when I got into the second chapter I lost hope the author would talk about science without mixing it with his pseudo-philosophy and I gave up on the book.

A marvelous expose on the history of the unraveling of the physical mysteries of the universe. Dr. Krauss takes us on a historical journey of the key figures involved in those discoveries that have led us to the understanding of particle physics to date. After this the book falls pitifully short by his interjection of science versus religion. He criticizes man and the religious mind for anthropomorphizing the universe giving it value and purpose claiming that the universe is an accident. Yet, at the same time describes the theory of unification desperately sought for of which as physical particles ourselves we must become a part of. In other words the value and purpose we see is intuitive to our nature on the basis of the field of unification. He claims science to hold the answers that theology does not. That science is edit advantage religion is not because of the ignorance of the people who hold a religious mind. He claims the world is better off because of science. And this is definitely true in Western culture and first world countries. Yet for the remainder of the planet steeped in poverty, which would be 90% of our population, misery continues while only those in Western culture reap the benefits of science. One must never forget that 18,000 children around the world starve to death every day. Will science solve this by tomorrow? Will science and ideologies that lead to war? Will it in greed? Will it end avarice? When will it do so? Does having a mechanism to explain and natural phenomena make our system of believes false? Cognitive science will say no that is not the case. To me, this book would have been fine had it stuck to pure science and it’s explanations of particle physics. But it breaks down into opinion and induction by claiming science proves God is irrelevant.

I enjoy learning about subjects that are not my focus, this includes reading books about science, and math that are written for we humble laypersons. Me Krauss is very enthusiastic about his subject, is obviously knowledgeable, sincerely wants others to learn about the great people and remarkable discoveries in Math and Science and Physics that have happened recently and in the past. However, it is a VERY difficult book to read. It assumes that the lay person understands even the broad brushstrokes of what he is explaining. It seems to jump around a lot within a topic. (As in "Oh you must know this, and then look over here, this is exciting, then, did you know about this other thing." Pretty cute really, like a puppy dog that is jumping around when a bowl of food is offered.

There are precious few people who can explain complex science or math or physics in lay-persons' terms. Mister Krauss is not one of them. The book also does not read like a story, it reads like a scrap book album. However you do get a general idea of the flow of progress toward understanding our world(s), for as far as you can make it through the book; which for me was about one quarter of the way.

Not every highly qualified, well regarded, well meaning person in their field is also a great communicator. No harm in that.

it okay but for some reason Physicist believe they most deny god and convince you of same, At the end of the day nobody has all the answers and some we may never know. Not interested in people religious convictions just want to read about the science. Well written however and easy to read.

This summary, popular science book has almost nothing new to offer and does not have the easiest, most engaging explanations to compensate either.

With a plethora of great books written on relativity/quantum mechanics in the last ten or so years, the task for anyone to come up with something good in telling the story of Galileo/Newton onwards, with a large portion of the book elaborating on the discoveries of the first half of the Twentieth century and then completing with the latest, is extremely difficult. Mr. Krauss traverses this usual journey in the most unremarkable fashion.

The highlight of the book was perhaps in the beginning when the author is dealing with electromagnetic discoveries surrounding Maxwell. From there on, the book continues to decline partly because of the short length (quantum phenomenon and relativity needed more leisurely explanations to drive the points home. As such, a large part of the book in the second half turns incomprehensible) and partly because of the constant shuffle between scientific arguments and arguments on the lives of the scientists.

The author does make occasional great points or draw analogies that make one understand better than in other such books. Yet, such instances are few and far in between.

I understood from the description that this book would be a history of physicists and science in general. What I actually got was more like 70% explanation of particle physics and 30% history. I did my best to grind through the endless explanations of atoms, electrons, neutrinos etc. Just to get to the actual history part but it was difficult. I would not recommend this book to anyone that is not very literate and passionate about particle physicists. I did enjoy the story telling of the actual scientist their struggles and victories everything else for me was really boring and to technical.

Some years ago I was fascinated with Lawrence Krauss' nonfiction book, A Universe From Nothing, in swhich the famed theoretical physicist explained why there is something instead of nothing in our universe. I don't think I fully understood the science until I read his new book, The Greatest Story Ever Told—So Far: Why Are We Here? Yes, I vaguely understood that the universe almost certainly was the spontaneous combustion of natural forces, but either I just needed to mull it over again or Krauss described it so I could understand it better.

Krauss uses snippets of scripture on his chapter oages and divides the book into three sections: Genesis, Exodus, and Reveations. While describing the super particle collider built in Switzerland by ten thousand scientists from around the world, he likened it to gothic cathedrals that simply were edifices glorifying a god. The massive collider is an edifice glorifying science and its amazing beauty.

Krauss definitely got my attention when his first quote introducing the book was from a book called The Peregrine, which is written by English naturalist J.A. Baker about his long observation of the peregrine falcon. A recent edition is out there so I'll be looking for it, yay!

I won't go into much science here. Suffice it to say, Krauss will easily convince any science skeptics that the story of how our universe, galaxy, world, and species came into existence is the greatest story told to this point. He begins with Plato's story of cave dwellers looking at a wall of shadows and thinking it reality until one of them accidentally stumbles outside into the light. When that person tries to argue to his friends that he's found the true reality, they scoff at him.

Scientists are well aware that they too aren't seeing the entire picture and what they see may be like what one would see if you're sitting on the spine of an iced window snowflake.

Briefly it goes like this: the force field covering all of empty space, the Higgs field, has a small part that condensated, forming a bubble or vacuum, and this lucky accident allowed matter to form, to have mass. Otherwise there would indeed be noting.

I love that he wrote his last pages on the desk used by the late Christopher Hitchens as he wrote God Is Not Great. Krauss was great friends with Christopher and his wife and he explains that his widow offered him the guesthouse with the desk. I agree that Hitch would've happily approved of using his old desk this way. Very oool, Krauss!

In closing I heartily recommend the book to very curious and ambitious readers. It takes a lot of concentration and sometimes needed to be skimmed, but it was well worth the effort.

The greatest story ever told, so far, isn't written in the most famous book ever: the Bible, or does not substitute reality for venerated mythology, and is not encompassed within the scope human existence. Rather, the greatest story ever told reaches far back before the first religions were established, before our homo-sapien species branched from our chimpanzee-like ancestors, before evolution by natural selection was conceptualized; thus before organisms existed, before our planet suspended in orbit around our solar system, before the primitive explosions that made the suns we see and the solar system we inhabit, up into the very inception of the universe as we know it. Krauss tells this story through the perspective of physics and cosmology (well to be honest it can only be told from that perspective before Earth came about). In this book we take a journey through modern civilization, and while we chart scientific advancement we start from the first scientists and progress to where we stand today. Throughout modern civilization up until probably Netwon, scientific inquiry did not prevail in law and in sentiment but was rather enshrouded in a dark cloud considered to be arcane and often heretical. The author captured this nicely but this great story shined the most when he spoke about 20th century physics (a big part because he was a scientist that spent most of his youth in that century and have also worked with preeminent scientists that have played a big part in the greatest story). Although Lawerence Krauss is a very good explicator (I came to realize this when I read his book 'Quantum Man') there is a lot of technical information and for someone without a scientific background like me it is very hard to cruise through this book without your full attention. It is definitely one of the most difficult reads I've ever had. Did it have to be so hard? Who knows. I certainly don't and therefore I can't really fully knock him for it though I believe some technical discussions could have been curtailed. What he does do though is write with fervor, an unencumbered passion for science and a requisite penchant for rationality. And as it turns out, despite the amazing discoveries that have been made within the past two centuries, there are many more to be discovered and therefore as we stand today, the greatest story ever told is not yet finished but in progress.

Well I'm not sure what this was. It was so thick in particle physics that it was almost unreadable. It was a letdown. I wish the whole book was like he wrote the epilogue where he actually put some feeling and meaning into what he was writing. Most of it seemed like you needed a PhD in physics to even read it. If you want an intelligible idea of what this very interesting scientist actually thinks about reality, you are much better off perhaps listening to his podcast episode with Sam Harris

One does need to have some knowledge of physics of the type he is discussing. But he does a good job of not getting too technical. I thought he included too much personal info and who his friends are/were. Sounded too often like bragging.

Interesting how the book was divided into Genesis, Exodus, and Revelations. As well as each of the 24 chapters beginning with a Bible verse.

Author:
"the universe doesn't give a damn what we would like or whether we survive"

"Humanity didn't have a choice in its evolution. We find ourselves alive on a planet that is 4.5 billion years old in a galaxy that is 12 billion years old, in a 13.8 billion year-old universe with at least a hundred billion galaxies that is expanding ever faster into a future we cannot yet predict."

"Yet when I witness wars and killing based on which prayers we are supposed to recite, which persons we are supposed to marry, or which prophet is the appropriate one to follow, I cannot help but be reminded again, of Gulliver, who discovered societies warring over which way God had intended man to break an egg."

The story of the rise of modern science and its divergence from superstition is the tale of how the hidden realities of nature were uncovered by reason and experiment. Ultimately these connections dispelled the goblins and fairies that had dominated our ancestors.

Lawrance Krauss is an extremely gifted story teller. He has an ability for describing complex physical theories to the nonspecialist without actually distorting them. This makes his books both very fun and very informative.

After reading "The Quantum Man" (his earlier book) and The Greatest Story, I finally feel I understand the gist of quantum theory and modern physics. It all starts with non-relativistic quantum theory, then continues with relativistic quantum mechanics, QED, weak force, unification of weak force and electrodynamics, and the standard model.

It's a thrilling journey to read about the characters and the quantum theory. Highly highly recommended. This is indeed the greatest story ever told--so far!

Lawrence M. Kraus is a theoretical physicist and director of the Origins Project at Arizona State University. In The Greatest Story Ever Told—So Far he describes various scientific advances in his field and the persons who developed them. He begins the book with Plato’s allegory of the cave in which people see shadows that they perceive as reality. But when they go out of the cave into the light they discover what is really true. Kraus also quotes J.A. Baker from his book, The Naturalist, “The hardest thing of all to see is what is really there.” Scientists bring us out of the cave and into reality, but it is not an easy process and is often counterintuitive.

People who are interested in physics will especially enjoy reading this work. For me, as someone not in this field, it was too technical and boring at times.

A bold book taking on the task of making the forefront of particle physics accessible to those without a deep background in the subject. It gives the human side of the story as well, showing how mistakes were made along the way, how credit doesn't always go to the ones who deserve it, and how all of this understanding is the result of the work of thousands of people. And it does so with humor, humility, and grace.

Krauss's latest book is a mixed bag of science and philosophy. The science could be explained better. The philosophy is hogwash.

The author is at his best when describing the personalities of the scientists who made the discoveries. Also of great value are his discussions of the awarding of Nobel prizes, and cases in which better decisions might have been available.

His explanation of scientific details could be more lucid. For example, although he mentions that quarks have a fractional charge, he doesn't illustrate how they combine to form entities with integral charge. The mathematics that underlies this is accessible to fourth-graders. So for this aspect of the program, I recommend looking elsewhere.

His philosophy is ludicrous. For example: "Electrons in hot atoms emit photons -- photons that didn't exist before they were emitted -- which are emitted spontaneously and without specific cause." He deduces that "photons can be created from nothing without cause"! Reasonable people regard the hot atoms as the proximate cause. From the subtext, he appears to mean that he couldn't measure whatever would be needed for an accurate prediction of the next photon without disturbing the system so much that the prediction would go awry. In fact, he can never know exactly what to measure because that discovery would require measurements that disturb the system too much. But reality is greater than what can be measured.

From the above and other considerations, he has deduced that whole universes can be created from nothing without cause. To this he devoted his previous book, subtitled "Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing". In that book, he admits that [measurement] science isn't good for answering why-questions. In this book, subtitled "Why Are We Here?", he has decided to make "why" a synonym for "how". A more honest, or less confused, author would have used "How" instead of "Why" in both cases.

This is not in any way to disparage his eagerness to explain what is known about "how". He is excited to be able "to celebrate and explore the beauty of nature", and readers will share in his enthusiasm. But that is not at all explicable by measurement. Beauty is central to a Christian philosophy, and thus Krauss offers himself and his readers a valuable clue to the meaning of the universe. We should be grateful (that's two more clues).

I found Krauss’s book totally engaging. It was a surprisingly easy and enjoyable read.This is a wonderful tour through astronomy into the newer, more unknown aspects of the final frontier. Yes it is the greatest story ever told -so far. Highly recommended!

This book could be a lot better at least to me. I have a hard time reading this book but not because of large words, or the complicated theories even (not to say I understand them all). The reason I have a hard time reading this book is that I always get lost. I will start to read then I kinda zone out and next thing I know I've read 3 pages and have no clue what I just read. I realize that on the Joe Rogan podcast he did say that most people will get lost and will have a hard time getting I just didn't expect it to be like this. I will update this review once I have fully finished this book and maybe ill try to get a better reading place set up but for now, this is it.

Krause is a bonifide expert.

But this book is rambling and philosophical... needed a good editor for sure.

Read the other low reviews then decide.

Instead read cosmology by this guy:
Gribbin, John, 1946-

Loved the book. Lawrence doesn't always write in the easiest way possible for the laymen. He makes you think, read again, and want to look up stuff like gauge symmetry. Great author, highly recommend this book !

This is not the worst book ever written, but it is surprisingly bad. Regarless of whether you like Krauss or not. Regardless of whether you agree with him or not. This is one lousy book.

Firstly the book fails to live up to the Einsteinian idea of "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler." This book is a slog through impenetrable jargon. And by bothering to walk the reader through the history of quantum mechanics rather than focusing on the current understanding, the jargon slog unnecessarily becomes vastly circuitous. After the first couple chapters just reading the book quickly becomes a chore. That chore is amplified when you have to pause reading every few sentences to do 10-15 minutes of research online just to try to understand what the hell he's talking about. Frequently concepts and terms are just plopped in the reader's lap with no supporting explanation.

That last tendency gets very annoying when you force your way through an obscure section by doing supplemental research only to find out that the term or understanding Krauss brought up was later superseded by a more accurate term or understanding. This happens a lot.

Secondly the book is (if I was feeling generous I'd say unintentionally) obfuscatory. I've had plenty of professors and peers (I'm an engineer) try to "blow me away" with their admittedly superior understanding of a subject. Even if Krauss is unintentionally "blowing us away" the result is the same: where a little explanation would shed a lot of light, the explanation is omitted. Where a concept is inherently simple, it is presented in an oblique, circuitous, and/or complicated way.

I'm just a lay reader like most people; supposedly his intended audience. I surely don't have a good grasp of 98% of quantum mechanics. But I'm not completely stupid or completely unfamiliar with scientific theories. I have a very comfortable lay understanding of special and general relativity (thank you, Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking). Krauss's explanations of those theories omit simple explanations in favor of more esoteric, tangential explanations. That is not conducive to comprehesion; and educator should know better. His explanation of lightning is not only far, FAR more complicated than it should be - it's actually just plain wrong! Lighting is a pretty simple - and a well understood - phenomenon.

As I beat my brains out trying to cobble together a rudimentary understanding of quantum mechanics (and frequently failing) based on the information Krauss presents, something occurred to me. I began to wonder if, in fact, he was doing as lousy of a job educating readers on quantum mechanics as he did on lightning and relativity.

Thirdly this book is horribly written. It reads like it never underwent any line or copy editing. From typos to grammatical issues to the general flow of the narrative; it's a mess. There are mixed metaphors and rhetorically weak arguments. It's so bad at times it almost (like the obfuscatory nature in the technical details) makes you wonder if this was intentional. It seems impossible that writing this bad could happen by accident. Unless, of course, the book actually was not edited! If it was edited... wow.

There is a common colloquial expression that mentions horseshoes and hand grenades. If English is your first language you probably know it. Krauss doesn't, however. When he metaphorically employs the expression to illustrate an idea 1.) he doesn't actually state the expression 2.) he misrepresents the expression 3.) he draws an erroneous conclusion about the expression and 4.) uses the erroneous conclusion to complete his illustration.

I must admit I only got halfway through the book before I called it quits. Sure I'm not the smartest guy out there. Perhaps I'm not patient and determined enough enough to achieve a better understanding of quantum mechanics. But to me this book had only two "modes." Either I didn't understand what I was reading or I did understand what I was reading - and found it annoying. Life is far too short to waste time with a book this bad.

Looking at the unbelievable praise heaped upon this book by some very intelligent people (and very capable writers, too) I have to wonder: Did they actually read this book? For my sanity's sake, I sure hope they didn't.

Having laboured through to the very end of this text, I feel it a public duty to warn the average reader looking for an accessible review of the subatomic universe. This is not what you’re looking for. I was swayed by the many five star reviews, which I now suspect are written by either specialists in the field or friends of the author trying to show support.

The catchy title is not an overstatement: biblical literalism notwithstanding, the efforts of physicists throughout history to describe how the universe came to be is a truly epic tale. Which is probably why Neil deGrasse Tyson used it as a chapter title in his popular book Origins, published ten years earlier. Although broader in scope, I found it much more lucid and engagingly written, by the way. It also discusses dark matter and energy, a topic that for some reason Krauss chooses to essentially skip over here.

After an initial creditable job of describing the exploration of electromagnetic energy, the author descends into a mind-numbing narrative of the history of subatomic physics, rather than an explanation of current understanding. This is presented mostly as the evolution and competition between obscure mathematical models. Aside from feeling alienated by this approach, I was annoyed by two recurring tendencies of the author. One is his need to insert his personal connection to many of the Nobel laureates in his field, no matter how tenuous. The other is a tone deaf dedication to the use of jargon. If the phrase “scalar field condensate” is clear to you, congratulations. This review doesn’t apply to you. One exception is the chapter on the Linear Hadron Collider near Geneva. The details here are clear and understandable enough to impress anyone. It’s too bad that the rest of the book couldn’t focus on a clear, simple explanation of the amazing discoveries such machines have enabled.

Audible purchase here. This book is totally for nerds. While it is written in laymen’s terms and I find Mr. Krauss painfully intelligent and personally interesting, particle physics just isn’t that interesting to me. I really wanted to love the book but I just may be too dumb to get it. I found myself nodding off during the middle of the day and having to listen at 1.5 times speed to get through it. I enjoyed the author’s performance and his clear enthusiasm for the dreadfully dull subject matter.

I very much enjoyed Lawrence's previous book. This one? Not so much. If you are into particle physics and are a stickler for details, this book is for you. Contrary to ancient myth, it isn't turtles "all the way down" supporting the elephant holding up the earth, it's details. Details, details, and more details, "all the way down". There may be a punchline in here somewhere but it would take the patience of Job to ferret it out. Particles traveling at the speed of light are massless and do not have spatial extension as they are "point particles". Nice one. As long as we have a name to explain away reason, we're "good to go". But doesn't light (photons) have mementum? And doesn't momentum require mass? I know, I know. I simply do not understand the nuances of theoretical explanations. But, c'mon, really? I always enjoy the multiverse being injected into otherwise tenable arguments to diminish any "specialness" we might otherwise covet. Problem is, proffering the Copernican view to make commonplace that which clearly is not, is not science. No, I don't believe in the sky god; it's just that some "explanations" assume too much ("but the maths support the view that I want to be true"). Some day a physicist will wright a book that does not assume more than is in evidence. A novel position for most popular writers of science. Until that time--assuming it will eventually come to pass--cross your eyes and focus as you will need every ounce of attention to get through this tome. Larry, you are more than capable of delivering a comprehensive treatise without making your readers bleary-eyed. We will wait patiently.

There are ill-logical idea-attitudes aplenty herein. If we grant (page 4) that "...there is no obvious plan or purpose to the world we find ourselves living in. Our existence was not preordained, but appears to be a curious accident." And, if we believe that: "...'God' DOES appear to play dice with the universe, or universes." And, if we, therefore, conclude that "...our luck may not last forever." And, if we believe that pre-modern humans were so naive or thought-less as to believe that there is NOT "...more to the universe than meets the eye."
If we grant the above observations of Lawrence Krauss to be true, we might still note Krauss' faith in science as exemplified by Newtonian & quantum mechanics and the current near-consensus regarding natural selection. However, in an "...impersonal, apparently random, universe...A universe without purpose...( page 6 )", I can't help wondering how any being,born of and coming from such a universe, could imagine that or come to believe that he or she could have such an "heretical" purpose. "Something from nothing" may be an article of faith to some,not very literalistic creationists--or to some scientists enamored or the Big Bang singularity ( singularities are unscientific guys! ).
If no sub-atomic particles, atoms, molecules, or on up in tem-place size-scales to galaxies, have a raison d"etre or anything beyond luck or ill-luck (no-draw) change, how could humans or any other so-called "intelligent" beings ever come to exist? How does a boot pull itself up all by itself?
Krauss' favorite section of Plato's "Republic" is the allegory of the cave( page 11). Perhaps Krauss believes that humans---More likely "pre-humans" in Krauss" view--came from an up-to billions of years lineage of entities (like "particles"), who, from the beginning were, in effect, imprisoned inside a cave their entire lives and forced to face a blank wall "...seeing only moving shadows of the "real world" which exists, out of sight, behind them. I believe Krauss twists Plato's intent: Plato did not have faith in a thought-less prehistory of humans. Plato believed, rather, that humans were capable of remembering( "Plato's anamnesis" ) what they were all about. Plato was more logical than Krauss, probably more logical than most of today's scientists.
The implications of an amoral, Kraussian, universe are profoundly dis-functional: If the universe is an "accident" then right & wrong, health & ill-health, having no basis, are invalid options. Even the healing of our badly wounded planet becomes a foundation-less idea-attitude.
However, science does not have to be based, indeed cannot be based upon, such a purposeless, essentially empty, concept.
I have more faith in The Original Parent or Origin and all the di-con-vergent offspring or "children". The one-creator gave rise to our whole Creatas of all size-scale/tem-places of creatures or beings. Or, as Jeremiah [ 1:5 ] heard it: "Before I formed you in the womb I knew/was intimate with...you".
Looking back we are all---all beings are---capable of seeing ourselves as "twinkles in The Universal Parent's eye". I see that "twinkle" now, and I'm looking backwards-&-forward to seeing that twinkle then as well as through eternity. See you "here-&-there"/"now-&-then".

Like most scientists and skeptics I generally give any solid anti-woo book five stars unless there are errors or it is a scam. With enough people speaking out against nonsense over the last 15 years, I am more now discriminating.

I am anxious for new names to rise in science, but it would be a disservice to yourself or your children to waste time on this book as it is neither remarkably bad or remarkably good and contains nothing that hasn't been written about elsewhere and with more flair. It is wiser to start with the tested and known.

Please first exhaust the catalogs of the people you already know and respect.
Steven Pinker to read about the evolution of language and evolutionary psychology,
Neil De Grasse Tyson for accessible funny reading on a variety of topics,
Bill Nye and Eugenie Scott for both introductions to scientific thinking and for accessible explanations of evolution and thorough demolitions of intelligent design,
Brian Greene for a look at theoretical physics
John Toomy and Leda Cosmides for profound insights into Evolutionary Psychology,
Richard Dawkins for evolutionary biology. Do not confuse an understanding of evolutionary biology for an understanding of evolutionary psychology.
E. O. Wilson and Bill Nye again if you dislike Richard Dawkins.
James Randi's entire published works for an always shocking look inside the disgusting scams of "psychics" and "faith healers', with enough humor to cool your rage at these parasites who continue to evade prison.
and finally Noam Chomsky or Charles Darwin themselves. Darwin is perhaps one of the most persuasive and accessible science writers ever. That's why he terrified those who didn't want anyone to understand evolution.

This book is doesn't live up to its professional reviews which, other than one, were written by personal friends of the author. A mere trip to the Dr. Krauss' website confirms this.

Did I mention Darwin is free?

If you are relatively smart, and have paid attention for the last 10 years, there is nothing new or remotely interesting in this book.
I was suckered in by the name, hoping it would provide some insight, but, alas, no.

I had hopes that Krauss' writing had improved since his most recent book (A Universe from Nothing). It hasn't. This book reads as though he distractedly dictated it to a tape machine while he was involved in other things that claimed more of his focus. Scattered (at best) and more simplistic than it needs to be, it reads as though he wrote it for his young children (maybe he did!) People and concepts are introduced out of the blue, often not following on what just proceeded; often not well introduced nor explained.
This is picky, but nonetheless: What incredible hubris does take for a man who so ferverently opposes all religion and the possibility of there being a God to use Biblical book names to title his sections and Biblical quotes to head each chapter. I'm not particularly religious, but shame on him.

Krauss's presentation of recent pioneering advances made in quantum physics is both exciting and compelling. He masterfully blends complex subject matter together with common sense language and straightforward examples thus successfully bridging an otherwise overwhelming journey into the realm of theoretical quantum abstraction.

Had the author chosen to omitt a paltry attempt to commingle science with theology his book would have been a significant contribution to quantum theory. Unfortunately professor Krauss only manages to paint himself into the same metaphorical corner as Hawking did by naively mandating that there is no purpose for considering the presence of a Creator, especially with respect to the Singularity Event, because laws such as gravity already exist...the REAL question for both of you is, where did all those laws come from?

John Lennox, Oxford Professor of Mathematics, sums it up more succinctly; "Nonsense remains nonsense, even when spoken by world famous scientists!"

The author seems to be cutely enthusiastic about his subject, but unfortunately his style is extremely boring. Of course, for those of us who are somewhat skeptical about quantum magics bandied about, his total dedication to such fallacies and false assumptions regarding quantum physics is disappointing, as well. You sense a devoted dervish to a stupid cult, not a scientist.

Absolutely uncalled for attack on Christianity. I'm a lover of physics and new ways of thinking, but this agenda-driven iit, left a sour taste in my mouth. His 'physics' also left me wanting. Very sure of himself, in an unsure world.

Avoid this dross like the plague. Many other books (for example, Hawkins or Greene) to choose from.

Krauss writes: "Similarly, when religious actions or claims about sanctity can be made with impunity in our society, we undermine the basis of modern secular democracy."

Gilbert and Sullivan's Modern Major General could sing that. "When the claims about sanctity can be made with impunity .. ."

Dr. Krauss, forget about religion and sanctity. You are just confusing the issue.

Look up Arigo. His first operation was removal of a cancer from Brazilian Senator Bettancourt's lung, using a straight razor, no cleanliness of any kind, no blood, no stitches, no medication, and he went into Bettancourt's back, not his chest. Bettancourt immediately went to his surgeon in Rio de Janeiro, who said, "I see you got the operation. Where did they do it? America?"

Dr. Krauss, this does not prove the existence of a Creator, but it proves beyond a doubt that there is much more to healing than we understand.