timeless world of contemplation

I knocked and entered, feeling as though I'd been transported into a timeless world of contemplation.
...
I would position myself in front of Stephen, clearly in his field of vision, and probe his mind by firing questions.

Stephen’s eyes would light up brightly when my arguments resonated with his intuition.

это из предисловия к On the Origin of Time: Stephen Hawking's Final Theory

стоит ли продолжать читать после такого начала?

In his book Cosmic Landscape an opinionated string theorist Leonard Susskind ... (who can be relied upon for wild bold speculation)...

дальше, однако, довольно интересно. вот, к примеру

Back then ... cosmologists acquired the dubious reputation of being "often in error but never in doubt."

In effect, in the 1950s, the big bang theory almost slipped from public view. Vocal in his opposition to Lemaître's theory, the British astrophysicist Fred Hoyle had coined the term big bang as a derisory term, during a BBC radio interview in 1949, and painted it as "an irrational process that cannot be described in scientific terms." Hoyle missed no opportunity to portray big bang cosmology as pseudoscience that had been pursued in a concordist endeavor.

и дальше про Леметра и Большой взрыв.

в общем дочитал до мембран и вселенной как голограммы и бросил, конца и края этим выдумкам чистого разума не видно.

и заодно забавное почти по теме: Collider court case finally closed