How It Began

A Time-Traveler's Guide to the Universe

By: Chris Impey

Narrated by: David Drummond

In this vibrant, eye-opening tour of milestones in the history of our universe, Chris Impey guides us through space and time, leading us from the familiar sights of the night sky to the dazzlingly strange aftermath of the Big Bang.

What if we could look into space and see not only our place in the universe but also how we came to be here? As it happens, we can. Because it takes time for light to travel, we see more and more distant regions of the universe as they were in the successively greater past. Impey uses this concept - "look-back time" - to take us on an intergalactic tour that is simultaneously out in space and back in time.

Performing a type of cosmic archaeology, Impey brilliantly describes the astronomical clues that scientists have used to solve fascinating mysteries about the origins and development of our universe.The milestones on this journey range from the nearby to the remote: We travel from the Moon, Jupiter, and the black hole at the heart of our galaxy all the way to the first star, the first ray of light, and even the strange, roiling conditions of the infant universe, an intense and volatile environment in which matter was created from pure energy.

Impey gives us breathtaking visual descriptions and also explains what each landmark can reveal about the universe and its history. His lucid, wonderfully engaging scientific discussions bring us to the brink of modern cosmology and physics, illuminating such mind-bending concepts as invisible dimensions, timelessness, and multiple universes.

A dynamic and unforgettable portrait of the cosmos, How It Began will reward its listeners with a deeper understanding of the universe we inhabit as well as a renewed sense of wonder at its beauty and mystery.

©2012 Chris Impey (P)2012 Tantor

Critic reviews

"What will especially impress [listeners] is just how entertaining Impey can make science as he regales them with his own piquant experiences as a researcher and translates arcane mathematics into metaphors drawn from everyday life." ( Booklist)

Impey, the story-teller

I have been listening to a lot of scientific audiobooks as soon as I joined Audible, but this one was different. Chris Impey does a fantastic job of setting up "short stories" in which he acts as a proton in the earliest time of the Universe, or jumps across multiple galaxies looking for planet Earth, or even simply to find his bearings.

Impey does a marvelous job of explaining the Universe in simple terms, and he makes it relatable to the casual listener. I certainly enjoyed exploring the Universe through Impey.

Please give this book a listen! I recommend it.

Reads like a High Schooler's bad poetry

Chris Impey seems like a lovely person. But he is not a good writing. He misuses and overuses flowery language to try and sound both profound and relatable. He fails at both. He manages to present relatively simple ideas e.g. anthropic reasoning in a very confusing way. The only reason I know what he's talking about half the time is that I already know the science. Nobody should read this book to learn about cosmology less the end up deeply confused.

Not only is the writing poor and meandering, but the editing is also poor. Chapters are not well organized, and he repeats himself a lot. Sometimes he'll present a great perspective on a subject e.g. he lays out a good take-down of fine tuning. But then in the next chapter he misrepresents fine-tuning exactly the way he warned against in the previous chapter. This leads me to believe he's not even written this book from scratch but cobbled together separate writings, hopefully his own, into a stack of pages high enough to satisfy his publisher.

I *almost* liked many of the poetic digressions. Almost. With a good bit of editing, plus some more mature form or meter, this might have been a great book of cosmological poetry. That's totally my thing. But he's got years of work to do before he's ready for that kind of thing. I'm actually hoping he does it. He's got potential. Maybe that would be less condescending if he was a High School student. Because that's the level he's at right now.

I'm happy Chris Impey has a passion for explaining science to a lay audience. This comes a cross clearly. But his writing sounds more like a kid who saw some science on TV trying to explain it to his mom. Not that he doesn't know his stuff. He's educated in the field and has published. But you need more than knowledge + passion to be a good science communicator. You need the skill of anticipating what other people don't yet know, so you can tell it to them. And it helps not to sound cringy.