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Why Does the World Exist?: An Existential Detective Story cover

Why Does the World Exist?: An Existential Detective Story

Jim Holt

0

awards won

4

score

#2741 of 3,809 books · #289 in Science & Technology

Shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction (2012).

Why Does the World Exist? was named to The Washington Post Notable Non-Fiction of 2013. Tackling the "darkest question in all of philosophy" with "raffish erudition," author Jim Holt explores the greatest metaphysical mystery of all: why is there something rather than nothing? This runaway bestseller, which has captured the imagination of critics and the public alike, traces our latest efforts to grasp the origins of the universe. Holt adopts the role of cosmological detective, traveling the globe to interview a host of celebrated scientists, philosophers, and writers, "testing the contentions of one against the theories of the other." As he interrogates his list of ontological culprits, the brilliant yet slyly humorous Holt contends that we might have been too narrow in limiting our suspects to God versus the Big Bang. This narrative humanizes the profound questions of meaning and existence it confronts.

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Publisher
W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN-13
9780871403278
Topics
Philosophy of existenceOrigins of the universeMetaphysics

Other awarded books from Jim Holt

Jim Holt has no other awarded or shortlisted books yet.

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