A groundbreaking book providing a new take on three of cosmology’s most profound questions: What, if anything, came before the Big Bang? What is the source of order in our universe? What is the universe’s ultimate future?

Current understanding of our universe dictates that all matter will eventually thin out to zero density, with huge black holes finally evaporating away into massless energy. Roger Penrose—one of the most innovative mathematicians of our time—turns around this predominant picture of the universe’s “heat death,” arguing how the expected ultimate fate of our accelerating, expanding universe can actually be reinterpreted as the “Big Bang” of a new one.

Along the way to this remarkable cosmological picture, Penrose sheds new light on basic principles that underlie the behavior of our universe, describing various standard and nonstandard cosmological models, the fundamental role of the cosmic microwave background, and the key status of black holes.

Intellectually thrilling and accessible, Cycles of Time is another essential guide to the universe from one of our preeminent thinkers.

罗杰·彭罗斯是牛津大学的Rouse Ball数学讲席终身荣誉教授。他获得过许多奖项，包括1988年与斯蒂芬·霍金一道因对宇宙学做出的重大贡献而获得的沃尔夫物理奖。他的著作还有《皇帝新脑》（The Emperor’s New Mind）和《通向实在之路》（The Road to Reality）等。