Before the Beginning: Our Universe and Others

8vo (24 cm), VI, 282 pp. Publisher's cloth and dust jacket (paper slightly browned). "In this illuminating work, Sir Martin Rees, Britain's Astronomer Royal and one of the most creative and original of contemporary scientists, draws these advances together with up-to-the-minute research on black holes, dark matter, and nucleosynthesis of the elements. He also sheds light on some of the personalities behind the science, offering first-hand impressions of Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, Stephen Hawking, John Archibald Wheeler, and Fred Hoyle, among others.With stunning clarity, Professor Rees argues that a family--even an infinity--of universes may have been created, each by its own big bang, and each acquiring a distinctive imprint and its own laws of physics." (from the publisher's description).