Even though I maybe retained & understood 1/10th of this book it was still an interesting read. Makes me wish I had not avoided science & math so much in my academic career.

Good coverage of how something can arise from nothing without a Creator, which is the focus of the final few chapters. This book, especially the conclusion, felt horribly rushed though. Hawking starts out with quantum-level conversations and builds bigger, but the writers skip the step (or quickly gloss over) how all of those elements connect. Really interesting approach, but it left me wanted further detail (and more from Mlodinow!).

You don’t need to know much theoretical physics to follow along. But some basic background about the basic ideas can really help.

Stephen Hawking cracks me up! I can just hear him saying in his automated voice "There might be one history in which the moon is made of Roquefort cheese. But we have observed that the moon is not made of cheese, which is bad news for mice.". Pg 140

Рейтинг: 5+. Книга от "Амфоры" с твердой обложкой, цветными иллюстрациями и бумагой высшего качества

took me longer than expected but that is more due to being busy compared to not enjoying the book. I was surprised at how easily I followed the concepts and how much a truly enjoyed the book.

I've read snippets of Hawking's books before and enjoyed them. The particular theme of this one interested me so I picked it up. It started out with some creation myths and a well-paced history of bigger picture science. It bogged down in the middle with an exploration of quantam physics that the author felt was necessary for his subsequent theory of Grand Design, but in reality did little for his theory or the book as a whole.

In fact, while engaging, fun to read, and highly informative, the book falls flat at the end. The line of reasoning, from my perspective, leaves much to be desired. Consider a few quotes from the last chapter:

"It is reasonable to ask who or what created the universe, but if the answer is God, the the question has merely been deflected to that of who created God. In this view it is accepted that some entity exists that needs no creator, and that entity is called God. We claim, however, that it is possible to answer these questions purely within the realm of science, and without invoking any divine beings"

While I find the philosophical question of who created God highly intriguing, I think Mr. Hawking confuses the fact that we are constantly finding laws that govern existence, thereby explaining what we thought was only attributable to divine interference, as proof that the divine does not exist. Understanding the HOW, does not address the WHY. Take this next quote:

"Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going."

Really? Is it any less plausible that the universe just started randomly 13 billion years ago than a supreme being created it? Either line of thought requires a good amount of faith to believe in. It reminds me of C.S. Lewis' arguments for the existence of God and how they all fell short if you did not start from the premise of belief in something more than the random universe--ultimately you have to believe one way or the other and no amount of "proof" will stand up to scrutiny because there is simply too much we don't know.

Regarding the Grand Design itself:

"M-theory is the UNIFIED [caps mine] theory Einstein was hoping to find. The fact that we human beings-who are ourselves mere collections of fundamental particles of nature-have been able to come this close to understanding of the laws governing us and our universe is a great triumph...If the theory is confirmed by observation, it will be the successful conclusion of a search going back more than 3000 years. We will have found the grand design."

This is from the last paragraph in the book. The problem is that there is nothing unified about M-theory. Hawking states this in his opening chapter and we learn later in the book that M-theory takes into account electromagnetism, strong forces, weak forces, and string theory in order to produce a multi-verse version of reality that includes 10 to the 500th power possibilities. Not only is this pretty far from fathomable to the average man, but it violates his first two principle of a good model from chapter 3, "A model is a good model if it: 1. Is elegant 2. Contains few arbitrary or adjustable elements". A convoluted mish-mash of theories that produces so many various elements (mathematically computable or not) is hardly a "good model". Due to the sheer volume of calculations necessary it is hard to confirm fulfillment of the last two criteria that the good model: "3. Agrees with and explains all existing observations 4. Makes detailed predictions about future observations that can disprove or falsify the model if they are not borne out."

Don't get me wrong. I am no quantam physicist nor cosmologist and certainly don't have the knowledge to disprove any theories in these fields. Likely we are on the right track with something like M-theory. However, it is not an easily understood unified theory (such may not even exist), and it certainly doesn't provide any answers about the why of the universe as it claims to. As with much of both science and religion, the more we learn and understand, the more questions arise.

The poor finishing premises of this book and agonizingly thick explanations in the middle of this work, knock it down two notches, but it is still worth the read if this sort of thing interests you. Solid 3 stars.