Perimeter researcher tells the real history of the Big Bang

We all want to know where we came from. It's the ultimate question - how did the universe begin? In the early 20th century, a new idea began to dominate the popular imagination about where we all come from. It was dubbed the big bang, and its journey from early theories to today is full of twists, turns, research, and rivalries.

“Every civilization has an origin story. They capture our imagination. The big bang is like the ultimate origin story,” says Perimeter Institute researcher Niayesh Afshordi, who has studied the big bang for over two decades. “But it’s also misunderstood because we are told a story about it that misunderstands the entire scientific process.”

Afshordi’s lifelong fascination with our cosmic origins is now the subject of his first book, Battle of the Big Bang, co-written with Phil Halper. In it, they lay out the true story of the big bang, from the very human history behind the idea itself to the current state of the research: the dominant theories, the major breakthroughs and observations, its remaining mysteries, and how we may solve them.

The humans behind our universe’s origin story

While Afshordi had thought about writing a book on the big bang for a few years, it wasn’t until he was contacted by British science communicator Phil Halper that the idea came into focus. Halper had been interviewing leading scientists on the topic, including Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose.  He reached out to Afshordi to discuss some of his recent models.

“He had these interviews with leading cosmologists, some of them my friends, and it wasn’t like anything I had seen before,” Afshordi recalls. “He was also interested in writing a book about the big bang, so it was a match made in heaven. He had a public science communication background, and I had my scientific expertise.”

Together, they started digging deeper into the origins of the big bang. This included stories about the initial theorists who formed rivalries and fiercely debated their ideas. While the heated debates never quite got as searing hot as the big bang itself, they sometimes nearly led to fisticuffs, as in the case of Dick Garwin and Joseph Weber, two physicists who clashed over gravitational wave detection.

Afshordi understands why the early big bang pioneers were so passionate. “The big bang is different from other scientific questions because it’s very hard to get evidence. It happened 14 billion years ago,” he explains. “Based on this sparse and scarce evidence, we build a story. In science, you have always had infighting and politics, but it is balanced by experiments and observations. In the case of the big bang, there’s much less observation and much more ego and politics.”

The big ideas of the big bang

It's this push and pull of theory and observation, emotion and relationships, that set the stage for the current state of big bang research that make up the bulk of the book. Afshordi and Halper tackle each approach on its own, from string theory to the Big Bounce and more. They take the time to break down the science into layman’s terms while illustrating each theory’s limitations and pitfalls.

After all, this is the scientific process Afshordi says is missing from our usual story about the big bang: there is much we don’t know, many ideas are attempting to fill in the blanks, and people eagerly challenge hypotheses in the name of the scientific method.

At each step, there are passionate scientists on the cutting edge taking big risks to find out where we all came from. Capturing the sometimes intense, oftentimes surprising events in the research was important to Afshordi to show that scientists are just like everyone else: emotional beings who live in and are influenced by the world around them.

“What makes scientists do research is not the boring and rigorous math. They are driven by the same things as everyone else,” Afshordi says. “We have the same kind of human nature that's in all of us and that's important for people to see. If everyone appreciates where scientists come from, that it's the same emotions that are universal, then I think people can connect to the underlying ideas.”

The next big breakthrough

So what’s the true story of the big bang? One of major discoveries, theoretical rigour, cultural influence, and a hefty dose of ego. While observatories such as the James Webb Space Telescope and Planck spacecraft have given us unprecedented glimpses into our universe's infancy, details remain hidden behind an era where light had not yet escaped the primordial plasma. Cosmologists are looking forward to new and exciting surveys to further understand the universe's birth.

What is certain is that some of the best minds remain dedicated and fascinated by the oldest story we have. It’s one that Afshordi himself feels very blessed to study.

“I don't think there is any question that captures people's imagination more than where we come from,” he says. “It's important to understand that there are deep, fundamental questions that we need to spend time trying to address. I consider myself lucky that I get to study something I care deeply about that captures people’s imagination.”

The Battle of the Big Bang is available from The University of Chicago Press on May 29, 2025. Get your tickets for a for a public lecture and book signing with Niayesh Afshordi at Perimeter Institute on June 4, 2025. Limited seating available.