The Universe in a Nutshell

Does it succeed? Yes and no. While Hawking offers genuinely accessible context for such complexities as string theory and the nature of time, it's when he must translate equations to sentences that the limits of language get in the way. But Hawking has simplified the origin of the universe, the nature of space and time, and what holds it all together to an unprecedented degree, inviting nonscientists to share his obvious awe and love of the unseen forces that shape it all.

Yes, it's difficult reading, but it's worth it. Hawking is one of the great geniuses of our time, a man whose life has been devoted to thinking in the abstract about the universe. With his help, and pictures--lots of pictures--we can seek to understand a bit more of the cosmos. --Therese Littleton

Product Description
Stephen Hawking’s phenomenal, multimillion-copy bestseller, A Brief History of Time, introduced the ideas of this brilliant theoretical physicist to readers all over the world.

Now, in a major publishing event, Hawking returns with a lavishly illustrated sequel that unravels the mysteries of the major breakthroughs that have occurred in the years since the release of his acclaimed first book.

The Universe in a Nutshell

• Quantum mechanics
• M-theory
• General relativity
• 11-dimensional supergravity
• 10-dimensional membranes
• Superstrings
• P-branes
• Black holes

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 laymen’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 superstring 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 Einstein’s 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 space-time. Copious four-color illustrations 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 in which we live. Like its companion volume, A Brief History of Time, it conveys the excitement felt within the scientific community as the secrets of the cosmos reveal themselves.

If you have any interest in understanding the latest attempts to create a unified scientific Theory of Everything in the universe, this is the book for you. Professor Hawking has combined many perspectives to show how Einstein's special and general theories of relativity have been updated to explain the big bang, black holes, and an expanding universe; superstring theory; p-branes; how many dimensions the universe has; whether the future can be predicted in a deterministic way; whether time travel is possible; how science will transform our biological and thinking futures in the context of Star Trek technology; and M-theory to consider whether "we live on a brane or are we just holograms?" Although any of these subjects can be found in popular science books, few such books discuss all of them simply and intelligently in terms of each other from the theoretical perspective and experimental evidence.

Those who wonder what science has to say about religious ideas will find this book valuable, for Professor Hawking is unafraid to address questions about whether there can be a beginning to the universe in a scientific sense. What could or could not have preceded the big bang?

Fans of A Brief History of Time (1988) will find that Professor Hawking has made two changes to make this book more accessible to the nonphysicist. First, he as written the book so that you can follow the argument solely through the many beautiful and helpful illustrations and their captions. The method parallels the one he used successfully in the 1996 book, The Illustrated Brief History of Time. Second, only the first two chapters are required reading to understand the rest of the book. You can read chapters 3-7 in any order after the first two, which means that you can get into the material that will be of most interest to you much sooner!

Professor Hawking's sense of humor also lightens the subject a lot. The book has witticisms, puns, and visual jokes galore to make you chuckle, from funny Shakespearean quotes ("I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself king of infinite space." Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2), to images from his appearance in the Star Trek: Next Generation television show (where he won at poker with Einstein . . . and had a mysterious visitor sit on his lap), to tales of bets lost and won, to unexpected comments about the effect of airline food on your life expectancy.

To make the material less dense, he also includes biographical information about the quirks of the physicists who have made these marvelous discoveries.

If you are fairly knowledgeable about physics, you will find this a fairly quick read . . . but one that will stimulate new flights of thought that can keep you busy for years. For example, he describes the physical limits of population growth and electricity being reached on earth by 2600. Then he goes on to speculate about how knowledge expansion through books can carry us forward faster to solutions than our geometric physical expansion. The future may well include major changes in the physical qualities of what a human is, a better connection between our brains and our electronic extensions, and the need to solve a delicate problem of where we should design for speed . . . and where for handling more complexity.

My favorite chapter was the one on predicting the future. My next favorite one related to the relevance of Star Trek to our future. I found the chapter on the Universe in a Nutshell to be the most fascinating as Professor Hawking explains the case for multiple histories occurring based on Richard Feynman's work.

Ultimately, one of the beauties of this book is the marvelous human spirit behind it. Professor Hawking seems like Leonardo to me, bought forward to today to challenge us to be our best as people and as thinkers. I feel honored to sit and learn at his feet.

I recommend that you reread this book once a year, because your thinking will be stimulated again and again by this outstanding overview of how all of our theories of reality may fit together.

One of the lessons of this book is that much of what we think of as "fact" is merely a convenient approximation of a more complex circumstance. Newton's thinking about gravity is a good example. Where in your life do you need to know with as much precision as possible, and where will approximations work just fine? Making that choice well can be the most important talent you can develop.

See beyond your limited perspective to the pulsing reality around us!

Physics for Poets   November 23, 2001
Rivkah Maccaby (Bloomington, IN United States)
61 out of 84 found this review helpful

I majored in English in college, and barely passed my Physics 105 class, so I think the fact that I found this book more than an easy read says a lot. Gliding through this book was like being the first person on the ice after the zamboni had resurfaced it.

I have known about the idea of time as the fourth dimension, but until I read this book, I never understood it. I now also understand the difference between Newtonian and Einsteinian physics and relativity. The book is an education.

But it is so much more; it's not a textbook, it's a journey. Somehow Hawking has managed to write a scientific odyssey of the type that was previously the domain of writers of Natural, rather than Mathematical sciences.

The book contains copious color illustrations, but it scarcely needs to, because Hawking's language paints a canvas in the reader's mind. The reader is swept up in Hawking's enthusiasm, and like Alice following the White Rabbit down the hole, follows Hawking into a wonderland of curves and contours where time and space are inextricably tangled up, and time has shape. Particles, sheets, and strings travel through eleven dimensions; black holes appear and disappear, and superstring theory and p-branes may hold the final clue to the puzzle of this place where there is no up or down.

No science fiction novel could ever compete with this adventure.


A must read even for the novice   November 30, 2001
MotherLodeBeth (Sierras of California)
26 out of 36 found this review helpful

Here is a book that I recommend every family own, and especially my homeschooling friends since it is rich with science fact and questions that most science books never address.

And it is easier to read than you might think, or understand and is one of those books that you come back to and re-read. Of course I also admit I may be more optimistic that some other reviewers. The chapters cover the whole space of time and how theories have evolved.

I would also recommend his Brief History of Time and would caution that even if you don't "get it" all that you will understand enough as you read along, to realize that science need not be boring or "heady" but is an everyday process and that as a human in this time and space we are a part of the overall process.

Chapter 1 A Brief History of Relativity
How Einstein laid the foundations of the two fundamental theories of the twentieth century. General Relativity and Quantum Theory

Chapter 2 The Shape of Time Einstein's General Relativity gives time a shape. How this can be reconciled with Quantum Theory

Chapter 3 The Universe in a Nutshell The universe has multiple histories, each of which is determined by a tiny nut

Chapter 4 Predicting the Future How the loss of information in the black holes may reduce our ability to predict the future

Chapter 5 Protecting the Past Is time travel possible? Could an advanced civilization go back and change the past?

Chapter 6 Life in the Future-Star Trek or Not? How biological and electronic life will go on developing in complexity at an ever increasing rate

Chapter 7 Brane New World The way ahead-brane worlds, biography, and the theory of Everything


Life, the Universe, and a brilliant scientist.   November 15, 2001
Edward Alexander Gerster (South Miami, FL USA)
63 out of 101 found this review helpful

For a single volume, this is an incredibly comprehensive overview of the current mainstream theories in a variety of fields. It is actually more fascinating than A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME, and I found it highly readable--although I do have a science background which creates a bit of a bias. And I did find myself returning to other texts for reference on several occassions.
The illustrations really do make this one of the most accessible texts on the areas covered, and the discussion on string theory is especially fascinating. In some ways, it is like reading a series of articles in SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, so if you feel comfortable with that level of scientific complexity then this book should be a comfortable read. Highly Recommended.


The Big Physics Questions Made Comprehensible   August 2, 2002
Cynthia Sue Larson (San Francisco bay area, CA USA)
11 out of 15 found this review helpful

Stephen Hawking's book, THE UNIVERSE IN A NUTSHELL, succeeds in making some of the newest theories in physics understandable to everyday people. Until reading this book, I hadn't considered what conditions would be necessary in order for our night-time sky to look completely white with stars, nor had I seen such a gorgeous depiction of the micro and macro-cosmic universe in a nutshell (cover illustration). Hawking carefully examines time-travel, predicting the future, and the shape of time after starting the book with an overview of the theory of relativity. Hawking saves his biggest question for last, to leave readers wondering "Do we live on a brane, or are we just holograms?" (A brane is something like a membrane.)

Thanks to stunning color illustrations and fascinating questions and ideas gracing almost every page, THE UNIVERSE IN A NUTSHELL accesses both the rational and intuitive hemispheres of the reader's brain. It's the perfect book to unwind with after a long day -- allowing the exotic images and ideas to percolate in your mind like a delicious cup of your favorite hot beverage -- opening your mind to whole new worlds of possibility.

Those seeking mathematical equations to accompany their theoretical physics will likely be disappointed by this coffee-table masterpiece, as will readers who prefer to read ground-breaking books which describe entirely new theories in physics. Pretty much everyone else will be thrilled to take a peek at the "big" questions and ideas being contemplated by the world's most famous physicist.