[.ca] The Universe in a Nutshell (ISBN 055371449X)

From Amazon.com:
Stephen Hawking, science's first real rock star, may be the least-read bestselling author in history--it's no secret that many people who own A Brief History of Time have never finished it. Hawking's The Universe in a Nutshell aims to remedy the situation, with a plethora of friendly illustrations to help readers grok some of the most brain-bending ideas ever conceived. 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

An amazing look at the beautiful wonders of our universe:
In The Universe in a Nutshell, the amazing scientist Stephen Hawking takes the reader on a journey of all the various theories concerning the nature of our vast universe. These theories are so fantastical that they really stretch the limits of your imagination, yet they are grounded in real research by some of the best minds in the world. Hawking addresses topics such as the quest among much of the physics community to unite Einstein's theory of relativity with quantum mechanics, which would describe the universe on scales of lightyears all the way down to the atomic level. He introduces amazing concepts such as imaginary time and the possibility of our universe consisting of up to 10 or 11 dimensions. He even addresses the possibility of time travel and alien life. The book has wonderful illustrations which help one to grasp the profound concepts with which Hawking deals. Also, the book is written in such a manner that each chapter can basically stand on its own. If you liked A Brief History of Time, I'm sure you'll like this. This is a really great book and if you have any interest in getting a glimpse into the most incredible, yet compelling theories of the universe this book would certainly be for you.

"Curled Dimensions" or Just Mimicking the Usual Three?:
Sir: "Curled Dimensions" or Just Mimicking the Usual Three? The claims by Hawking (The World in a Nutshell) and Greene (The Elegant Universe) to be close to a theory of everything (TOE) are premature in two essential ways: 1.A true TOE would start with a definition of theory and proceed to a theory of knowledge or epistemology. 2.The idea that nature has 10 or more hidden spatial dimensions "all curled up" is just an artificial way to give their physically impossible one dimensional strings enough degrees of environmental freedom to mimic a real three dimensional object. 3.Wolfram's "New Kind of Science", along with Fredkin's attempt to model the world as a cellular automaton will not work either, for cellular automata can neither be programmed nor given a physical basis. There is neither computable software nor identifiable hardware. 4.I discuss all this in my forthcoming booklet "The World" (Core Books, Summer, 2004, drudin@radix.net). See also www.worldtheory.org. INSTITUTE FOR AXIOMATIC KNOWLEDGE AND SYSTEMATIC EDUCATION Annapolis, MD USA Donald O. Rudin, M.D., President. Professor, Mathematical Epistemology

I love this book:
Inspite of all the negative reviews for this book I love it, it all depends what you want out of this book. If you want to get familiar with Mr. Hawking's bright ideas this book is for you, but if like some readers you expect to become a physicist after reading one book it is not for you. Reading the negative reviews I noticed those reviewers eighter don't have an open mind for others' ideas or expect this book to cover everything. I highly recommend it. Enjoy.

Genius:
Stephen Hawking has a way of turning deep thoughts into intelligible sentences, and knowing how difficult it is for him to actually form sentences, due to his illness, this book is all the more impressive. Hawking explains the state of modern physics, from relativity to superstrings, spending time on major points with clear and concise explanations for how we figured it out and what it tells us about our universe. The many graphics in the book serve as valuable aids to the reader for clear comprehension of difficult concepts. Hawking uses a modicum of humor to keep the proceedings fun. The text is easy to read, and Hawking spends time on fun concepts such as time travel which are sure to interest the layman. There is an emphasis on the known as opposed to the theoretical, which is perfect for a general summation of physics such as this offers. To learn about superstrings and the cutting edge of theoretical physics, read Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe. To catch up on the hundred years that predate that theory, this book will serve you well.

Among the deepest, borderline-philosophical questions in modern physics is that of the origin and formation of the Universe:
Earlier attempts to formulate an answer that takes into account existing theories and observations have failed because of obstacles posed by gravity. The Nature of Space and Time pitts two heavy weights trying to provide a loop quantum gravitational model that successfully merges current ideas, and which may enable us to overcome such difficulties. Stephen Hawking shot to fame in the world of physics when he provided a mathematical proof for the Big Bang theory. This theory showed that the entire universe exploded from a singularity, an infinitely small point with infinite density and infinite gravity. Hawking was able to come to his proof using mathematical techniques that had been developed by Roger Penrose. These techniques were however developed to deal not with the beginning of the Universe but with black holes. Science had long predicted that if a sufficiently large star collapsed at the end of its life, all the matter left in the star would be crushed into an infinitely small point with infinite gravity and infinite density...a singularity. Hawking realized that the Universe was, in effect, a black hole in reverse. Instead of matter being crushed into a singularity, the Universe began when a singularity expanded to form everything we see around us today, from stars to planets to people. Hawking realized that to come to a complete understanding of the Universe he would have to unravel the mysteries of the black hole. Hawking and his fellow physicists embarked on an extraordinary intellectual expedition to tame the black hole. Slowly physicists were coming to understand this most destructive force of nature. But Hawking realized that there was something missing from the emerging picture. All work on black holes to that point used the physics of the large-scale Universe, the physics of gravity first developed by Newton and then refined by Einstein's theories of general and special relativity. Hawking realized that to come to a full understanding of black holes, physicists would also have to use the physics of the small-scale Universe, (the physics that had been developed to explain the movements of atoms and sub-atomic particles, known as quantum mechanics.) The problem was that no one had ever combined these two areas of physics before. But that didn't deter Hawking. He set about developing a new way to force the physics of quantum mechanics to co-exist with Einstein's relativity within the intense gravity of a black hole. After months of work Hawking came up with a remarkable result. His equations were showing him that something was coming out of the black hole. This was supposed to be impossible. The one thing that everyone thought they knew about black holes was that things went in but nothing, not even light itself, could escape. But the more Hawking checked, the more he was convinced he was right. He could see radiation coming out of the black hole. Hawking then realized that this radiation (Hawking Radiation) would cause the black hole to evaporate and eventually disappear. Although Hawking's theories about black hole evaporation were revolutionary, they soon came to be widely accepted. But Hawking knew that this work had far more fundamental consequences. In 1976 he published a paper called 'The Breakdown of Predictability in Gravitational Collapse'. In it he argued that it wasn't just the black hole that disappeared. All the information about everything that had ever been inside the black hole disappeared too. There are limits to what science can know. For many years no one took much notice of Hawking's ideas until a fateful meeting in San Francisco. Hawking presented his ideas to some of the world's leading physicists. In the audience were Gerad t'Hooft and Leonard Susskind, two leading particle physicists. They were shocked. Both realized that Hawking's 'breakdown of predictability' applied not only to black holes but to all processes in physics. According to Susskind, if Hawking's ideas were correct then it would infect all physics, there would no longer be any direct link between cause and effect. Physics would become impotent. Since that meeting arguments effectively boiled down into two camps. On the one side were Susskind and those who believed that Hawking was wrong: information could not be lost. On the other were Hawking and those who believed that physics would have to be rewritten to take into account the uncertainty about information that Hawking had uncovered. Until a paper emerged by a young mathematician Juan Maldacena. It claimed to be a rigorous mathematical explanation of what happened to information in black holes. It showed that information was not lost. Hawking, it seemed, was on the losing side. But he was not convinced. Hawking set to work with a young research student, Christophe Galfard, to try to pick apart the Maldacena paper. They thought they could use the same mathematical techniques employed by Maldacena to prove that information was in fact lost. But after two years they still could not prove their thesis. Hawking was soon back at work, working on a new proof for the information paradox. But he was to defend his long held belief that information was lost in black holes, instead he claimed that he could now prove the opposite. Hawking presented the outline of proof that he hoped would at last solve the problem that he had posed almost 30 years earlier. But despite the bold claims, some physicists remain unconvinced. Over a year has passed and he has still not presented a fully worked mathematical proof to back up his ideas. But Hawking is a stubborn man. If Hawking is going to change his mind on a view he held for almost 30 years then it will be with his own proof, in his own time. In spite of failing health and increasing problems communicating with his colleagues, he is still working on the proof. If he succeeds in completing a proof that convinces his colleagues, he will not only have solved one of the most difficult problems in physics but he will have managed to have produced ground breaking work at the very end of his career. A feat that even his hero Einstein could not accomplish. If not, Hawking will have inspired some future physicist, who will eventually complete the paradox and answer the question 'What happened before The Big Bang?' Help raise awareness; support cancer research!