The Theory of Everything: The Origin and Fate of the Universe (Hardcover)

~ Stephen W. Hawking (Author)
Key Phrases: psychological arrow, primordial black holes, thermodynamic arrow, Edwin Hubble, Nobel Prize, Roger Penrose (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

With a title inspired as much by Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker series as Einstein, The Theory of Everything delivers almost as much as it promises. Transcribed from Stephen Hawking's Cambridge Lectures, the slim volume may not present a single theory unifying gravity with the other fundamental forces, but it does carefully explain the state of late 20th-century physics with the great scientist's characteristic humility and charm. Explicitly shunning math, Hawking explains the fruits of 100 years of heavy thinking with metaphors that are simple but never condescending--he compares the settling of the newborn universe into symmetry to the formation of ice crystals in a glass of water, for example. While he explores his own work (especially when speaking about black holes), he also discusses the important milestones achieved by others like Richard Feynman. Though occasionally an impenetrably obscure phrase does slip by, the reader will find the bulk of the text enlightening and engaging. The material, from the nature of time to the possibility that the universe has no beginning or end, is rich and deep and inevitably ignites metaphysical thinking. After all, Hawking is famous for his "we would know the mind of God" remark, which ends the final lecture herein. --Rob Lightner

Review

"...can explain the complexities of cosmological physics with an engaging combination of clarity and with..his is a brain of extraordinary power." --The New York Review of Books --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: New Millennium Press; First Edition edition (June 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1893224546
• ISBN-13: 978-1893224544
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #416,376 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars So how *does* this relate to A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME?, November 21, 2004

By	Michele L. Worley (Kingdom of the Mouse, United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

"...minus several million for good thinking..."
- Zaphod Beeblebrox, THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY

The above quote (and the score I've assigned to this book) aren't in reference to the text or the author, but to the publishers. Why anyone with the brains of a sea urchin would cross Professor Hawking as they seem to have done is beyond me.

Briefly, save your money and buy THE ILLUSTRATED BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME instead of THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING, even if you're a compulsive Hawking completist. Alert readers should notice that Hawking doesn't hold the copyright for THEORY OF EVERYTHING, and attempted to block its publication. It was originally titled THE CAMBRIDGE LECTURES: LIFE WORKS, and appears to have been drawn from some recordings of lectures given by the professor years ago. (See the professor's web site for details.)

The "vanilla" (i.e., not the ILLUSTRATED) THEORY OF EVERYTHING consists of an introduction, seven lectures, and an index, without *any* illustrations or diagrams. Out of curiosity, I compared a library copy of it with THE ILLUSTRATED BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME.

Unless otherwise noted, each of the 7 lectures corresponds to a chapter of the same name in BRIEF HISTORY, in some segments only with slightly different paragraphing and punctuation (and occasionally the kind of spelling errors that creep in when one transcribes audio narration to text, if I may speculate as to the cause).

I don't understand why anyone would prefer the less polished text of THEORY OF EVERYTHING to THE ILLUSTRATED BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME, which not only has updates for new areas of research, but has been revised and rearranged to explain things more gently to the layperson.

"Ideas About the Universe" is essentially an extract from "Our Picture of the Universe", the first chapter of BRIEF HISTORY, with about one sentence's worth of drift per paragraph.

BRIEF HISTORY's version of "The Expanding Universe" has a more gradual introduction to the methods of measuring distances to nearby stars, and explains technical terms that may be unfamiliar to the non-scientist, such as luminosity.

THEORY OF EVERYTHING really shows its age in "Black Holes" when compared to BRIEF HISTORY, as Hawking has not been idle in that area over the years. The illustrated edition of BRIEF HISTORY has had a fair bit of interesting material added to "Black Holes", especially regarding cosmic censorship and naked singularities (Hawking having made a few *more* bets on the subject with Preskill and Thorne, although he paid off the Cygnus X-1 wager).

"Black Holes Ain't So Black" lacks major blocks of clarification/explanation added by Hawking to the version in BRIEF HISTORY.

BRIEF HISTORY's version of "The Origin and Fate of the Universe" goes into more detail: about the kinds of particles that are predicted to have come out of the big bang, and what sort of results we'd expect to see today if the predictions hold, and the scientists who first put forward these theories. BRIEF HISTORY also contains a much longer version of the "open questions" section, leading more gradually up to the discussion of Guth's development of the inflationary model.

"The Direction of Time" corresponds to BRIEF HISTORY's "The Arrow of Time" (which is worth picking up just for the picture of the keeper of the U.S. cesium clock). BRIEF HISTORY goes into more detailed examples to explain what Hawking means by the psychological arrow of time, with the simplest kind of "computer": an abacus.

"The Theory of Everything" mainly corresponds to BRIEF HISTORY's more modestly titled "The Unification of Physics", which is much more up to date (string theories are still covered, but a lot more work has been done in that area over the years). The tail end of the lecture corresponds to the ending of BRIEF HISTORY's "Conclusion".

--

In summary, this is interesting stuff, but THE ILLUSTRATED BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME does it better.

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good introduction, but somewhat oversimplified., June 27, 2002

By	D. W. Casey (Sturbridge, MA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Stephen Hawking's The Theory of Everything is a short book that can act as an introduction to the subjects of cosmology raised by modern science, but the book is only that; I preferred his Brief History of Time to this work because it was longer, more detailed, and covered more ground. If you are looking for a very basic introduction to the current thinking of astrophysicists, this is a good book; if you really want to wrestle with the subject at length, you should buy a Brief History of Time, or one of Paul Davies works, such as About Time. If you are looking for a good lecture series on physics, Richard Feynman's Six Easy Pieces and its sequel, Six Not So Easy Pieces is really the finest of this genre.

That being said, the book does a good job in outlining the basic subject matter, discussing the development of the Big Bang theory, and the implications of both the general theory of relativity and quantum physics on the formation of the universe. Hawking is at his best when discussing singularities -- the points of the universe, such as black holes, where the laws of physics break down.

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book, exceeded only by A Brief Hostory of Time, July 1, 2002

By	Colin Mcclelland (South Bend, IN USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Hawking clearly fleshes out his important findings in this book, but it's essentially an abridged version of his earlier A Brief History of Time, and the recent The Universe In A Nutshell. His latest incarnation of singularity physics and grand unifying theory speculation offers no new research from the last three or so years, and virtually everything can be found in either A Brief History of Time or in Universe in a Nutshell. If you're trying to meet a paper deadline, buy this book. Otherwise, read his more detailed and illustrated works for better comprehension