A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing is a non-fiction book by the physicist Lawrence M. Krauss, initially published on January 10, 2012, by Free Press.

[3] Christopher Hitchens had agreed to write a foreword for the book prior to his death but was too ill to complete it.

[6] Caleb Scharf, writing in Nature, said that "it would be easy for this remarkable story to revel in self-congratulation, but Krauss steers it soberly and with grace".

[7] Ray Jayawardhana, Canada Research Chair in observational astrophysics at the University of Toronto, wrote for The Globe and Mail that Krauss "delivers a spirited, fast-paced romp through modern cosmology and its strong underpinnings in astronomical observations and particle physics theory" and that he "makes a persuasive case that the ultimate question of cosmic origin – how something, namely the universe, could arise from nothing – belongs in the realm of science rather than theology or philosophy".

Regarding the questions on the laws of physics, they have been addressed before the book was written,[11][12] and afterwards, [13][14] Regarding their existence, if Krauss' thesis in the book is correct, there have proposed diverse possibilities for our universe, after the popped-up proposed by Krauss due to a quantum fluctuation, the interaction between two primordial elements such as supermassive primordial blackholes (whether tachyonic or not, as unique two elements in the nothingness) could have led to the emergence of an everlasting (indeterminate) expanding universe, and baryonic spacetime region as observable universe in a shared coordinate region-like.

[15] The question of the nothingness remains in the field of philosophy, but, indeed, the fundamental concept meaning the absence of anything or the opposite of something (or everything) paradoxically implies a rhetorical oxymoron to the subject matter.

[20][21] In The New York Times, philosopher of science and physicist David Albert said the book failed to live up to its title; he said Krauss dismissed concerns about what Albert calls his misuse of the term nothing, since if matter comes from relativistic quantum fields, the question becomes where did those fields come from, which Krauss does not discuss.

[15] To direct them science has proposed conformal cyclic cosmology, within a universe can appear after the other by Roger Penrose, or one Big Bang after the other within the same universe, which, still less radical, is compatible with Roger Penrose's, keeping open the possibility of a primordial Big Bang nonetheless.

The theory predicts that at this small scale, particles of matter and antimatter are constantly created and destroyed.

Since there is no definitive reason that spacetime needs to be fundamentally smooth, it would be possible that instead, in an early stage of a protospace or before the existence of a protospace, a virtual spacetime would consist of many small, ever-changing regions in which space, time, and nothingness would be not definite, but fluctuating in a foam-like manner.

Commenting on the philosophical debate sparked by the book, the physicist Sean M. Carroll asked: "Do advances in modern physics and cosmology help us address these underlying questions, of why there is something called the universe at all, and why there are things called 'the laws of physics,' and why those laws seem to take the form of quantum mechanics, and why some particular wave function and Hamiltonian?

[43][44][45][47] It is no surprise that within that very foamy region of the early dual quantum foam, that the interaction between virtual events, virtual subatomic particles emerging from quantum fluctuations with the very nothingness and in between them, the very laws of physics may change and acquiring oscillating foamy character.

Not only our universe could be just a single point, not evolving in time, or a single oscillator, rocking back and forth in perpetuity, but it has been proposed that it could be both, filling the gap for entropy one (the second), and feeding the universe regarding mass and energy or virtual particles and events (the first).

[17][21][56] Regarding the question of the multiverse, and the Everett interpretation, a mild proposal for the evolution since the beginning, tackling therefore the question of the emergence from the nothingness and the virtual spacetime as not necessarily a closed or constraining box, has been presented regarding the topic of the multiverse and this book,[57] called quantum darwinism,[58][21][57] in which it is the running-course of the emergence of planets (as a random fluctuation between appearance and disappearance of planets, producing an adaption-like and longer continuity, permanence, or persistence of planets that present certain qualities and may harbor life or be key to others, where some may harbor life), in a fast run-track that led to a current-state in which, at least, one planet called Earth can harbor human life, fulfilling the anthropic principle with no need for a multiverse.

"[1] Perhaps, a second edition of this book that has been also portrayed and recommended as a delicacy,[1] could open a "virtual quantum window" or opportunity for a better Dawkins' afterword of the new edition of the book: "And while I said I would definitely recommend the consumption of this delicacy, I find this meal could have been made even better if only a few more ingredients had been added to it.