The book is the first I have seen to put the details, both historical and conceptual, of the origin of the Universe within the grasp of the general reader. As such, it is a tremendous service to us all.Isaac Asimov

Weinberg builds such a convincing case . . . that one comes away from his book feeling not only that the idea of an original cosmic explosion is not crazy but that any other theory appears scientifically irrational. Jeremy Bernstein, New Yorker

His book is science writing at its best.Martin Gardner, New York Review of Books

Now updated with a major new afterword that incorporates the latest cosmological research, this classic of contemporary science writing by a Nobel Prize-winning physicist explains to general readers what happened when the universe began and how we know.

Steven Weinberg received the 1979 Nobel Prize for Physics for his work in unifying two of the fundamental forces of nature, and in 1991 he was awarded the National Medal of Science at the White House. His earlier prize-winning book The First Three Minutes is the classic account of the "Big Bang," the modern theory of the origin of the universe. Among his other books are The Theory of Subatomic Particles and Gravitation and Cosmology: Principles and Applications of the General Theory of Relativity. Steven Weinberg is a member of the Royal Society of London as well as the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and has been awarded numerous honorary degrees, most recently from Columbia University and the Universities of Salamanca and Padua.

Raymond Todd is an actor-director in the theater, a poet, a jazz trombonist, and a documentary filmmaker who lives in New York.