A concise examination of the origin of the universe.

Most readers find it difficult to imagine a universe that has existed forever, but it’s equally hard to imagine it popping out of nowhere 14 billion years ago. Rothman, a physicist and former editor at Scientific American, points out that until the early 20th century, astronomers believed that the heavens were vast and unchanging. Once they learned that the universe was expanding, some simply rewound the clock. This required a Big Bang, but without concrete evidence, other theorists proposed a steady-state universe in which galaxies simply appeared to fill the voids as others receded. This changed after 1965, when astronomers discovered cosmic microwave background radiation. The universe has a temperature. Since it’s expanding, it’s cooling, so it was hotter in the past when it was denser. This killed the steady-state theory, and countless provocative questions have followed, some of which seem embarrassing—e.g., “What came before the big bang?” One of Rothman’s advisers once told him, “If you ask a stupid question you may feel stupid. If you don’t ask a stupid question, you remain stupid.” Readers will not remain stupid after this book, but those curious about black holes, exploding stars, and extrasolar planets must look elsewhere because Rothman concentrates on the big picture, focusing on gravity, the force controlling the fate of the universe, and Einstein, the first to get gravity right. Einstein’s masterful theory of general relativity describes our universe on the large scale but requires quantum theory for behavior at the atomic scale, and the theory fails to explain what happened at the instant of the Big Bang or why ordinary matter makes up only 5% of the universe. Although illustrations are simple and equations absent, Rothman offers mostly clear explanations of complex concepts, including quantum gravity string theory and the nature of dark matter and energy.

Lucid and informative.

In this scientific thriller (Everything’s Relative: And Other Fables from Science and Technology, 2003, etc.) a laboratory in Texas working to harness fusion energy must deal with sabotage from a rival lab—or possibly someone closer to home.

When a Controlled Fusion Research Center (CFRC) demonstration publicly fails at sustaining fusion for energy, physicist Nathaniel Machuzak is appointed acting director, partially because during the test the current director was electrocuted. Nathaniel and his colleague Slava suspect sabotage from their European competitor, International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER)—both labs are in a race to convert fusion into usable energy. Rothman’s novel is filled with scientific discussions on everything from the equipment used to the different types of fusion, like cold or laser, complete with corresponding jargon. But Rothman turns all of it, even a convoluted conspiracy, into a diverting, worthwhile story. The terminology is adequately explained without pretension, largely thanks to T.J. D’Abro, a female cop Nathaniel hires to work security and investigate the sabotage. She acts as both a potential romantic interest for the physicist and a repository for lay terms; for instance, she equates a pool break shot with particle accelerators. Often, the story alternates between past and present tense, sometimes in the same scene, which can be disorienting. The result is something that can read like an online game in play: “At this point Nathaniel feels blocked and remains silent”—fitting, since the cybertaunting mole might be hiding inside avatars within a roleplaying game called “The Real World.” Nathaniel falls prey to bouts of paranoia—he only seems to trust Slava and T.J.—but he seems right, since the shiftiest characters tend to be indisputably villainous: Cyrus, the previous director, who had been monitoring CFRC employees’ Internet usage; Balard, the ITER director, with obvious animosity toward all things CFRC; Senator Whitman, who openly challenges the financial strategy at Fusion Center; and Moravec, the GlobeTex chief executive officer and CFRC’s principal investor, whose limited, virtual appearances in “The Real World”—both as a male and female—suggest androgyny and omniscience. When the pervasive threat of sabotage insinuates itself into the ranks, even Nathaniel and Slava are not immune to allegations.

Intelligent in its technical details, but also refined and delightfully complex in its storytelling.