The questions presented are the inherent issues we strive, consciously or unconsciously, to grasp every day of our lives. The author, possessing an impressive grasp of the philosophical, theological, and scientific foundational issues, entertains us with an overview that offers the reader options to ponder how—and why—the world exists. Full Disclosure—even though the material is presented as a “detective story,” the science can be difficult to grasp. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t vastly intriguing, even if you only got a “C” in High School Physics. In the words of one scholar quoted by the author, “As soon as you ask why there is something instead of nothing, you have gone beyond science.”

The author begins with a review of the views of famous philosophers preoccupied with the question, “Why is there something rather than nothing?” The world class thinkers he critiques include Aristotle, Plato, Descartes, Aquinas, Saint Anselm, Schopenhauer,  Hume, Kant, Spinoza, Leibniz and Bertrand Russell, just to name a few. Prompted by the observation of novelist Martin Amis that we are at least “five Einsteins away from an answer,” he sets out on a quest to interview modern scientists who may have clues to the mystery.

Inviting the reader along for the ride, the author travels to Pittsburg to interview Adolf Grunbaum, to Oxford to interview Richard Swinburne and David Deutsch, to Austin to interview Steven Weinberg, back to New York City to interview Sir Roger Penrose, on to Canada to meet with John Leslie, back to Oxford to interview Derek Parfit, and, back home in New York City, he conducts a telephonic interview with John Updike. I especially enjoyed the visit to the Café de Flore in Paris where Jean-Paul Sarte and Simone de Beauvoir used to hang out. Finally, the reader travels with the author for a visit to his hometown in the Shenandoah Valley. It’s a trip, he tells us, that reminded him that he would someday return to nothingness.   

Or will we? Christopher Hitchens poses the question, “If you don’t accept that there’s a God, how can you explain why the world exists at all?” To which Stephen Hawking adds the twist, “Why does the universe go through all the bother of existing?” Steven Weinberg’s rebuttal is that “We’re faced with a mystery we can’t understand.” And so it goes.

Personally, I think Nothingness really exists. How do I know?  Remember the hit song “Nobody” recorded by Sylvia in 1982? I now suspect the lyrics of the song had a hidden cosmological syntax. The lyrics go like this. “Well, your “nobody” called today. She hung up when I asked her name. Well, I wonder, does she think she’s being clever? You say nobody’s after you. The fact is, what you say is true, but I can love you like nobody can, even better.” 

In any event, clever as we can be, we shall gamely pursue the answer to the ultimate questions until we achieve enlightenment. Or something like that.