One of the most influential thinkers of our time, Stephen Hawking is an intellectual icon, known not only for the adventurousness of his ideas but for the clarity and wit with which he expresses them. In this new book Hawking takes us to the cutting edge of theoretical physics, where truth is often stranger than fiction, to explain in layman's terms the principles that control our universe.
Like many in the community of theoretical physicists, Professor Hawking is seeking to uncover the grail of science- the elusive theory of everything that lies at the heart of the cosmos. In his accessible and often playful style, he guides us on his search to uncover the secrets of the universe- from supergravity to supersymmetry, from quantum theory to M-theory, from holography to duality. He takes us to the wild frontiers of science, where super string theory and p-branes may hold the final clue to the puzzle. And he lets us behind the scenes of one of his most exciting intellectual adventures as he seeks "to combine Einsteins General Theory of Relativity and Richard Feynman's idea of multiple histories into one complete unified theory that will describe everything that happens in the universe."
With characteristic exuberance, Professor Hawking invites us to be fellow travelers on this extraordinary voyage through spacetime. Copious four color illustration help clarify this journey into a surreal wonderland where particles, sheets, and strings move in eleven dimensions, where black holes evaporate and disappear, taking their secret with them, and where the original cosmic seed from which our own universe sprang was a tiny nut.
The Universe in a Nutshell is essential reading for all of us who want to understand the universe which we live. Like its companion volume, A Brief History of Time, it conveys the excitement felt with in the scientific community as the secrets of the cosmos reveal themselves.
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This is obviously a science book. It is divided into sections. The first two giving more of a general background and the last few are about more specific topics. One thing I like about this layout is after the first two sections it is designed so you can jump around the other sections. I have only read the first two sections and am working on the third. Another thing I like about this book is how many diagrams and pictures there are that go along with the text.
ReplyDeleteI have read three more sections of this book. In my opinion it is getting better as it goes on. I found the first two sections just reviewing/explaining background information and the layout of the book. The three sections I just read were more exciting actually getting into cool ideas. Lots about relativity, black holes, and spacetime.
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