The Theory of Everything: The Origin and Fate of the Universe Paperback – Special Edition, 30 Dec. 2007

verry good

A thoroughly interesting read of developments in space knowledge over the last 50 years. Easy to read with detail explained in simply. Facinating

A good read if you want to understand the history of the universe within a short volume. Each chapter (lecture) starts off capturing your interest, but soon gets very deep in technical and scientific jargon that seem to repeat the same words and phrases for page after page. I ended up skipping about half of each lecture just to jump to the last page.

"One evening in November ... I started to think about black holes as I was getting into bed." (P 75) As one does. He points out that, with his disability, getting into bed takes a long time.This is typical of the way Hawking mixes biographical details and scientific, astro-physical thinking of the rarest kind in this little book, but "little" only in the physical sense as it opens the mind to the vastness of the universe.The notion of the widely-accepted expanding universe led him to consider (with Roger Penrose) the reversing of time and to what it would lead, i.e. a big-bang, singularity. This was his work until 1970 and that November evening. Since then his pioneering thinking on black holes has provided some startlingly original ideas.The "theory of everything" is the physicists' Aladdin's Cave, Holy Grail or, in Hawking's case, tomorrow's desk job.Disappointing in some ways, i.e. its brevity and (for Hawking's followers) its repetition but it is worth the investment in time and, short as it is, that is not long.

An interesting read so far. Stephen Hawking makes it easy to understand the physics behind his theories and how the theories and science have developed over the hundreds of years. I am looking forward to the second half of the book which should be covering quantum mechanics etc..

Very interesting but very complex. Well written and diagrams are very helpful. One needs to have a good foundation in the understanding of science.

Tis is the first book of this kind I have read but it won't be the last. Wonderful book

This book is what I would call a light version of his "A Brief History of Time". Even took the book and started comparing the texts. The Theory of Everything is actually a watered Down version of "A Brief History of Time". If you want to know more about Hawking's writing, then get "A Brief History of Time" or the newer / updated version "A Briefer History of TIme". But what this book version actually do, which I like, is, it has a CD audiobook, where Hawking himself reads this book. Thumbs up for that.