The book behind the questions · God Plays Dice™ Volume One
What if the Big Bang wasn’t the beginning?
What if our Big Bang was the aftershock of a higher-dimensional blast? God Plays Dice follows that question into cosmology and sets out the evidence that could test it.
Author’s hypothesisA hypothesis, not a discovery claim. No equations required.
A short spell, while falling asleep or waking up, when your mind is awake but your body cannot move. Many people sense a presence or feel pressure on the chest. The experience is real and can be scary, but the NHS calls it harmless.
Historical photograph · Einstein (left) and Bohr in Brussels at the 1930 Solvay Conference, where Einstein posed his photon-box challenge. Photo by their friend Paul Ehrenfest. Public domain
A hundred years after Einstein’s dice letter, the question keeps moving.
„Jedenfalls bin ich überzeugt, daß der nicht würfelt.“
“At any rate, I am convinced that He does not throw dice.”
Albert Einstein, in a letter to his friend Max Born · 4 December 1926
“He” is “the Old One” (der Alte), Einstein’s metaphor for the deepest laws of nature. It was an argument about physics, not a verdict on anyone’s faith. It is also where our name comes from.
On 4 December 1926, Albert Einstein wrote to his friend Max Born about the new quantum mechanics. He admired what it could explain, but doubted that its probabilities were the deepest possible account of nature. Near the end, he said he was convinced that the “Old One” did not throw dice. The familiar phrase “God does not play dice” comes from that thought. It was a metaphor in a physics argument, not a statement that settles anyone’s faith.
A century later, quantum physics has passed extraordinary tests. Experiments have also ruled out some simple ways of imagining hidden instructions beneath its probabilities. They have not ended every question about what the theory means. That is why this anniversary is a good time to ask carefully, rather than claim a final victory.
The book God Plays Dice borrows the metaphor for a different question: how did our hot early universe begin? Ricardo Maldonado’s HD-Blast proposal is one possible idea to examine, not something Einstein predicted or something already observed. Read the evidence, see where a proposal could fail, and bring the question that stays with you. Author’s hypothesis
Explore the questions
Where would you like to begin?
Seven short paths through the biggest questions, a few reads each, in order. Stop anywhere.
A timeline of cosmic history. The widening shape shows distances growing over time; it is not a picture of an edge or of anything outside the universe.
NASA / WMAP Science Team; modified by Cherkash, via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain (NASA work) · Image source ↗
Lemaître’s 1946 book on his primeval-atom hypothesis, L’Hypothèse de l’Atome primitif, in the collection of Musée L in Ottignies-Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716), painted around 1695 by Christoph Bernhard Francke. In 1714 Leibniz wrote that the first question we can fairly ask is why there is something rather than nothing.
Christoph Bernhard Francke, Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum Braunschweig, via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · Image source ↗
Alfred Wegener, photographed between about 1924 and 1930. His 1912 idea that the continents move was not well received in his lifetime; new evidence from the ocean floor later revived it as plate tectonics.
Unknown photographer, via Bildindex der Kunst und Architektur and Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · Image source ↗
A made-up damage pattern on a World War II bomber. The red dots show hits on planes that made it home. Planes hit in the empty spots, such as the engines, were more likely to be the ones that never came back to be counted.
Martin Grandjean (vector), McGeddon (picture), US Air Force (hit plot concept), via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Image source ↗
See every path, step by step → We keep your place in five of these paths, on this device only. The faith-questioning and grief paths are never tracked.
About these pictures
What if the answers I was given stopped fitting? — Photograph · The Milky Way over Great Basin National Park, Nevada. U.S. National Park Service, Great Basin National Park; via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain (PD-USGov-NPS)
A century after Einstein wrote to Max Born, the famous line is still a useful doorway into what quantum physics can—and cannot—tell us.
3 min
Image credit
Conceptual illustration · AI-generated conceptual illustration. Conceptual illustration of Einstein’s dice metaphor. The blank letter is not an archival document.
Distant light lets us look far into the past. But the earliest light we can receive arrived after the universe had already been changing for a long time.
3 min
Image credit
AI-generated conceptual illustration. Conceptual artwork. Telescopes collect ancient light, but this is not an image of the Big Bang.
EstablishedStrong, repeated evidence and broad scientific agreement.
Supported, still debatedGood evidence; the details are still argued.
Open questionNobody knows yet. Serious ideas compete.
Not supportedChecked, and the evidence does not back it.
Beyond sciencePhilosophy, values or belief. Science can inform it but not settle it.
Author’s hypothesisRicardo Maldonado’s own proposal. Unconfirmed, and testable.
Labels describe the evidence for a claim, not the people who hold it. “Beyond science” means evidence can’t settle a question either way; that is not a verdict against it.
Proof belongs to mathematics. Science offers evidence, and it keeps correcting itself.
Ricardo Maldonado, founder and editor of God Plays Dice.
Ricardo Maldonado was born in Guadalajara and raised in Las Vegas. He spent half his life inside the Church and half outside it, and he has been asking where everything came from since he was seven. He founded and edits God Plays Dice. You don’t have to agree with him.
EarthSpacecraft image, detail · Earth from about 6 billion kilometres: Voyager 1, 14 February 1990 (image reprocessed 2020). The gold ring and line mark Earth; they are not part of the image. NASA/JPL-Caltech · Public domain
Photograph · The cover of the Voyager Golden Record, launched in 1977. NASA/JPL, via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain
THE OCCASIONAL LETTER
Stay curious.
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All Access
More depth, never more truth.
The short answer is always free. All Access opens every long answer: the evidence piece by piece, the strongest objections, and how to check it yourself.
Included with All Access
Ask the Architect.
Follow your own questions through AI conversations, cited sources and Ricardo’s research (Author’s hypothesis).
Up to 5 questions a day while available. AI can get things wrong; check the sources.
The short answer, how sure we are and every source, on every Library answer
3 long answers a month, or 6 with a free account, except the long answers that explain Ricardo’s own research (Author’s hypothesis)
The status of Ricardo’s own research (Author’s hypothesis): what each idea proposes and what it does not claim, its strongest challenge, what would rule it out, and anything corrected or withdrawn
All Access adds
Every long answer in the Question Library
The strongest objections, set out in full
How to check each answer yourself
Ask the Architect: questions answered with AI, with cited sources you can check. It draws on published Library answers, the book and Ricardo’s own research material (Author’s hypothesis), including unchecked or outdated drafts. AI can get things wrong or find no supported answer. Up to 5 questions a day while the service is available.
Keep God Plays Dice on your Home Screen: one tap to tonight’s question.
Grounded Wonder
We’re people who looked up at the night sky and kept asking. Some of us pray. Some meditate. Some stopped believing, and some never started. Wonder is where knowing begins, not where it ends.
Read the whole note
So we follow each question as far as the evidence goes, and we say “we don’t know yet” out loud.
We take people seriously and check claims carefully, including our own. Ricardo’s ideas are labeled Author’s hypothesis. They could be wrong, and you’re invited to say so.
We don’t sell certainty. Science offers evidence, tests and probabilities, and it keeps correcting itself.
We happened. That’s reason enough to pay attention, be kind, and keep asking.
God Plays Dice is an independent home for big questions, founded and edited by Ricardo Maldonado. Our editorial methods and corrections policy are published on the Editorial Standards page.
