The Grand Design, Stephen Hawking
The Grand Design, Stephen Hawking
15 Rating(s)
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The Grand Design

Author: Stephen Hawking, Leonard Mlodinow

Narrator: Steve West

Unabridged: 4 hr 32 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 09/07/2010


Synopsis

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “A whirlwind tour of fundamental physics and cosmology.”—The Wall Street Journal

“Fascinating . . . a wealth of ideas [that] leave us with a clearer understanding of modern physics in all its invigorating complexity.”—Los Angeles Times

When and how did the universe begin? Why are we here? What is the nature of reality? Is the apparent “grand design” of our universe evidence of a benevolent creator who set things in motion—or does science offer another explanation? In The Grand Design, Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow present the most illuminating scientific thinking about these and other abiding mysteries of the universe, in nontechnical language marked by brilliance and simplicity.

According to quantum theory, the cosmos does not have just a single existence or history. The authors explain that we ourselves are the product of quantum fluctuations in the early universe and show how quantum theory predicts the “multiverse”—the idea that ours is just one of many universes that appeared spontaneously out of nothing, each with different laws of nature. They conclude with a riveting assessment of M-theory, an explanation of the laws governing our universe that is currently the only viable candidate for a “theory of everything”: the unified theory that Einstein was looking for, which, if confirmed, would represent the ultimate triumph of human reason.
 
A succinct, startling, and lavishly illustrated guide to discoveries that are altering our understanding and threatening some of our most cherished belief systems, The Grand Design is a book that will inform—and provoke—like no other.

About The Author

Stephen Hawking was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge for thirty years and the recipient of numerous awards and honors including the presidential Medal of Freedom. His books for the general reader include My Brief History, the classic A Brief History of Time, the essay collection Black Holes and Baby Universes, The Universe in a Nutshell, and, with Leonard Mlodinow, A Briefer History of Time and The Grand Design. Stephen Hawking died in 2018. Leonard Mlodinow is a physicist at Caltech and the bestselling author of The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules our Lives, Euclid’s Window: The Story of Geometry from Parallel Lines to Hyperspace, and Feynman’s Rainbow: A Search for Beauty in Physics and in Life. He also wrote for Star Trek: The Next Generation. He lives in South Pasadena, California.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Cindy

It's a funny thing being a cosmologist in the greater Los Angeles area. Back when I was a partying single graduate student, I'd frequently hit the town for some fun. Inevitably I'd meet someone, strike up a conversation, and they might ask me what I did for a living. "Oh, I'm a cosmologist." "Cosmeto......more

"Why is there something rather than nothing? Why do we exist?" "the universe doesn't have just a single history, but every possible history, each with its own probability," Ever since I read A briefer History of Time, I've been wanting to read more of Hawking's books. And so came The Grand Design. Thi......more

Goodreads review by Kemper

When this book was released, I was reading a story about it on-line, and the headline said something like: “Stephen Hawking Says There Is No God”. Then I made the critical mistake of looking at the user comments under the story. It was the usual collection of badly spelled notes from ignorant asshat......more

Goodreads review by Marvin

Stephen Hawking is smarter than I am. That's no big feat because two of my cats are smarter than I am. The other cat is a certifiable idiot. But Hawking is way smarter than I am. The Grand Design is Hawking's explanation, more or less, about why the universe is the way it is. The answer comes do......more


Quotes

“The authors bring together an anecdotal clarity that is something of a first for the genre. . . . Making science like this interesting is not all that hard; making it accessible is the real trick, one that The Grand Design pulls off.”—Time

“Groundbreaking.”—The Washington Post

“In this short and sprightly book . . . Hawking and Mlodinow take the reader through a whirlwind tour of fundamental physics and cosmology.”The Wall Street Journal

“Fascinating . . . a wealth of ideas [that] leave us with a clearer understanding of modern physics in all its invigorating complexity.”Los Angeles Times

“Provocative pop science, an exploration of the latest thinking about the origins of our universe.”The New York Times
 
“Introduces the reader to topics at the frontier of theoretical physics . . . more clearly for general readers than I have seen before.”—Steven Weinberg, The New York Review of Books
 
“A provocative, mind-expanding book.”The Plain Dealer