I read this book several years ago and must admit my disappointment. I wrote a review for myself, as I do with books I've read, and re-reviewed it after reading this article. At the risk of boring anyone who cares to read my review, here it is:
A somewhat misleading and unsatisfying explanation of the ancient philosophical question, “Why is there something rather than nothing?” Krauss admits at several points in the book that “nothing” is not really nothing but actually something. The nothingness of space is filled with unstable dark energy; therefore, something actually comes from something. In fact, he argues, it is inevitable. That nothing can truly be nothing – “no thing” – is not conceivable. He admits at several points, too, that it may be more a philosophical question not susceptible to a scientific answer, as one cannot prove or disprove the uncaused cause of everything, or an external creative force: the existence of a God.
Furthermore, Krauss concedes that current physics may never be able to bridge the gap between general relativity and quantum mechanics. A new physics may be required, unknown and unimaginable to us at this point in science, or it may not even be attainable in our particular universe. Nevertheless, Krauss has an almost religious faith in the Big Bang and our current understanding of the universe. The best explanation he can offer to the central question is thus a tautology. In my layman’s words: If positive one plus negative one [matter plus antimatter] equals zero, then that equation can be reversed. Zero equals positive one plus negative one. An equation cannot exist without a product and its factors. The factors cannot exist without their product. They depend upon one another to function. If nothing cannot exist without something; then something cannot exist without nothing. Something must inevitably come from nothing.
Kraus, thankfully, does not argue that we are at the end of physics, but for someone who knows the history of the trials and errors of science (and his own history of mathematical mistakes), he certainly exhibits the hubris of overconfidence in the faith he has in the ability of physics to ultimately reveal the mysteries of the universe.
