A Tear at the Edge of Creation: A Radical New Vision for Life in an Imperfect Universe

The search for universal truth, the underlying oneness connecting all things, has been the abiding obsession of philosophers and alchemists, prophets and string theorists. We would cross a bridge from Occams razor to quantum theory on a path of symmetry and elegance toward a grand, unifying Theory of Everythinga place, just over the horizon, where the physical laws governing very large bodies (Einsteins theory of relativity) and those governing tiny ones (quantum mechanics) unite in a single, orderly framework. Yet somehow, despite the strivings of some of historys best minds, it turns out that the universe is probably not elegant. It is most likely gloriously messy. In A Tear at the Edge of Creation, the award-winning physicist Marcelo Gleiser argues that the quest for a Theory of Everything is fundamentally misguided: imbalance, asymmetry, and imperfectionnot orderare the engines of creation. In this lucid, down-to-earth narrative, which has been translated into twelve languages, Gleiser walks us through the basic and cutting-edge science that fueled his own transformation from unifier to doubter: a fascinating scientific quest that leads himand usto a new understanding of what it is to be human.