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We will encounter all these ideas and arguments later in this book, and I will carefully separate my opinion from that of science – or rather what we know with a level of certainty. But it is worth noting that the modern picture of a vast and possibly infinite cosmos, populated with uncountable worlds, has a long and violent history, and the often visceral reaction to the physical demotion of humanity lays bare deeply held prejudices and comfortable assumptions that sit, perhaps, at the core of our being. It seems appropriate, therefore, to begin this tour of the human universe with a controversial figure whose life and death resonates with many of these intellectual and emotional challenges.

Giordano Bruno is as famous for his death as for his life and work. On 17 February 1600, his tongue pinioned to prevent him from repeating his heresy (which recalls the stoning scene in Monty Python’s Life of Brian when the admonishment ‘you’re only making it worse for yourself’ is correctly observed to be an empty threat), Bruno was burned at the stake in the Campo de’ Fiori in Rome and his ashes thrown into the Tiber. His crimes were numerous and included heretical ideas such as denying the divinity of Jesus. It is also the opinion of many historians that Bruno was irritating, argumentative and, not to put too fine a point on it, an all-round pain in the arse, so many powerful people were simply glad to see the back of him. But it is also true that Bruno embraced and promoted a wonderful idea that raises important and challenging questions. Bruno believed that the universe is infinite and filled with an infinite number of habitable worlds. He also believed that although each world exists for a brief moment when compared to the life of the universe, space itself is neither created nor destroyed; the universe is eternal.

Although the precise reasons for Bruno’s death sentence are still debated amongst historians, the idea of an infinite and eternal universe seems to have been central to his fate, because it clearly raises questions about the role of a creator. Bruno knew this, of course, which is why his return to Italy in 1591 after a safe, successful existence in the more tolerant atmosphere of northern Europe remains a mystery. During the 1580s Bruno enjoyed the patronage of both King Henry III of France and Queen Elizabeth I of England, loudly promoting the Copernican ideal of a Sun-centred solar system. Whilst it’s often assumed that the very idea of removing the Earth from the centre of the solar system was enough to elicit a violent response from the Church, Copernicanism itself was not considered heretical in 1600, and the infamous tussles with Galileo lay 30 years in the future. Rather, it was Bruno’s philosophical idea of an eternal universe, requiring no point of creation, which unsettled the Church authorities, and perhaps paved the way for their later battles with astronomy and science. As we shall see, the idea of a universe that existed before the Big Bang is now central to modern cosmology and falls very much within the realm of observational and theoretical science. In my view this presents as great a challenge to modern-day theologians as it did in Bruno’s time, so it’s perhaps no wonder that he was dispensed with.