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Is there an explanation for existence?

By Amanda Gefter

20 June 2012

In Why Does the World Exist? Jim Holt spans physics, philosophy and literature to examine the mystery of why there is something rather than nothing

NOVELIST Martin Amis once said we are about five Einsteins away from explaining the universe’s existence. “His estimate seemed about right to me,” says Jim Holt at the beginning of his book Why Does the World Exist? “But I wondered,” he continues, “could any of those Einsteins be around today? It was obviously not my place to aspire to be one of them. But if I could find one, or maybe two or three or even four of them, and then sort of arrange them in the right order… well, that would…

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