Can we —the infinitesimal space-time capsules— understand the Universe, explain how it was born, how it evolved, how it reached its present form? And, finally, is there a purpose behind all this? In other words: can we provide a scientific explanation of the Universe, based on the laws of physics? And if so, how did those very laws appear? The astonishing, though little known, fact is that today we have convincing answers to all the above questions. This may sound perhaps presumptuous, even like “hubris,” especially if I tell you that the answers come from High-Energy Physics and Cosmology...

This is also the central theme of the book: to see how new ideas, together with the experimental and observational data of Astroparticle Physics —that is, the synthesis of Particle Physics and Cosmology— naturally lead us to the answers to the Great Questions that may not concern us all, but certainly affect us all. The rapid developments in Astroparticle Physics —the unified Physics of the Microcosm and the Macrocosm— indicate a Universe that may have been born as a quantum fluctuation from the quantum vacuum, which many identify with “nothing.”

In this way, a new philosophical system emerges, one that clearly recalls the philosophy of the absurd as presented by Albert Camus in The Myth of Sisyphus.

D. N