The Universe In a Nutshell, a brilliantly written piece by Stephen Hawking and published by Random House Publishing Group in November of 2001. Hawking fulfills the expectations set after composing A Brief History of Time in this explanation of quantum mechanics and Einstein’s theory of relativity. I find the work as a whole broken down to where the average reader can simply understand the complex ideas and information, and the author’s wit shines through his words which makes reading the 292 pages thoroughly enjoyable. The author breaks up the non-fiction book into 7 chapters, each containing separate ideas. This set up makes it easy for the reading to skip around from Chapter 1, A Brief History of Relativity, to Chapter 4, Predicting the Future, and still being able to follow Hawking’s ideas. Hawking focuses on the theoretical physics involved in understanding the composition of the universe. Chapters one depicts Einstein’s breakthroughs in the theories of general and special relativity. It also explains how Einstein led to the creation of quantum mechanics. Hawking goes into more detail in chapter two of general relativity and the analysis of gravity’s part in special relativity. He also goes into detail on Einstein’s work and the way it shows how space and time are essentially one entity and together they create a theoretical “shape.” The Universe in a Nutshell is the title of chapter three, and rightfully so as Hawking goes into detail on the fundamental tension between general and special relativity, and how these theories combined with Einstein’s quantum mechanics depicts the universes multiple histories, all shaped by a “tiny nut” as Hawking puts it. The information discussed in chapter four in mainly discusses whether or not physics allows the future to be predicted and how such a prediction would be affected by black holes. Physics are also the main focus of chapter five, except now Hawking discusses if the laws of physics permit time travel. He argues that an advanced civilization could theoretically travel backwards in time, but the use of probability would be infinitely miniscule. In chapter seven, Hawking expresses concern for the future of the human population and how the complex advances in technology and genetics will continue to accelerate, he predicts these changes will lead to the future being dramatically different and deeply complex. The final chapter is by far the most complex. Hawing goes into detail on p-brane theory, a proposed theory on quantum gravity. In simple terms, if p-brane theory is accurate, our present universe in all its entirety could quite possible just be a “hologram” of sorts. In conclusion, The Universe In a Nutshell by Stephen Hawking, is a masterfully written composition of simply explained quantum theory and the complex ideas behind general relativity. Hawking has yet again topped the charts in scientific knowledge.
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