Rating: 
Summary: So your brain doesn't expode ...
Review: What a wonderful, impossible book. My advice is such:Buy the book. Leaf through the illustrations. Dip into the text here and there. Put the book down. Pick it up again later. Read Chapters 1 & 2. (The basis for the rest of the book.) Again, leaf through the rest of the book. Then put the book down again. Later, review Chapters 1 & 2, then venture out into the finite universe that is Chapter 3. Read on if you like, but not too far. Set the book down. Pick up the book again. Again, quickly review Chapters 1 & 2, and soldier on. Despite the clear and sometimes witty writing, and the terrific illustrations, the ideas in this book are extremely challenging. Digesting it is hard work, especially if you try to attack it all at once. So let your brain grasp the concept of eleven dimensions slowly. Allow string theory to simmer. Contemplate the cosmos a few pages at a time ...
Rating:
Summary: Better than school!
Review: "The Universe in a Nutshell" is easier to understand than any science class that I have ever taken. Stephen Hawkins uses humor to explain how the universe works around us. A MUST read for anyone who has ever asked "How?" or "Why?" You will see the universe in a new way!
Rating: 
Summary: Does it make it? Yes and no.
Review:
As Therese Littleton says in her editorial review, "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."
The average bright-normal reader, with a better than average vocabulary, but a limited education in Einsteinian physics, quantum physics, string theory, mathematics, astronomy and high-energy physics will find this tough sledding. The illustrations are beautiful, but the subject matter put forward is so esoteric and arcane (to the layman) that it is difficult, if not impossible to grasp. The basic concepts are probably totally foreign to any but the theoretical physicist. To those of us who live in a macrosopic world, with our feet on the old, familiar ground, it is hard to understand theories that can only be described mathematically. Einstein's concepts were, perhaps, marginally understandable by most of us when illustrated by analogies of trains going down tracks in opposite directions and passengers playing catch inside them, or we could even understand what he was getting at with the twins paradox, even if we found it hard to believe. But, quantum physics, I submit, stretches the imagination almost to its limits. Beyond that, wormholes in space, string theory, and the other esoterica that is currently being produced in the think tanks and laboratories of the theoreticians boggle the mind. That time/space is "shaped" like a pretzel as Hawking's book presents it on page 33, requires a suspension of disbelief to assimilate the concept. I find no fault with Stephen Hawking, or his theorizing. I certainly cannot fault his book. I simply do not comprehend what he is dishing out. If I did, I might be qualified to argue with him. These theories are so "far out" that the average layman even with a better than average education will have to set them aside and trust that Hawking and Thorne and the rest are actually dealing with reality, and not simply pulling our chain. At least, it's a nice coffee table book. Buy it, display it, and let your friends marvel at your erudition. Certainly you wouldn't buy a book that was 'way over your head, would you? I did. Joseph Pierre
Rating:
Summary: The Universal Nutshell: Hard to Crack
Review: In THE UNIVERSE IN A NUTSHELL, Stephen Hawking does what many other science writers have tried, with varying degrees of success, to do for the last twenty years: to explain how the universe came into existence. The difference between Hawking and these other writers is that he has the rare ability to take some truly convoluted concepts and can explain them in such a way that the typical college graduate can comprehend. Make no mistake. This book is not for the academically challenged. It was written for those who have a predisposition for understanding as to why the sky is as big and as black as it is. The number of PHDs in physics or astronomy in this country is quite small relative to the total population, and what is contained in this book is surely not new to them. But what of those who are well-educated in other disciplines? This book is geared to them.
Hawking likes colorful pictures and three-dimensional illustrations. As the reader plows through some prose that,like the very quarks that Hawking analyzes, resists further simplistic reduction, his use of visual aids is at once both entertaining and informative. His focus is on Einstein's twin theories of relativity, black holes, time travel, branes, and my personal favorite: Star Trek concepts and characters used to elaborate key points. His purpose in not to grind his own axe or to trump a favored theory but rather to update the educated reader as to what passes for the latest cutting edges in cosmological theories. Other reviewers of this book have damned him with faint praise by noting his acknowledged personal eccentricities. I did not find any serious problems with this. Yes, he does place himself squarely in the Star Trek universe by playing holographic poker with Einstein, Newton, and Commander Data, but as an inveterate poker player myself, I have often heard some Universal Truisms bandied about a felt-tipped table. One of his most controversial issues lies more in biology than cosmology. Hawking mentions Star Trek as unrealistic in that he expects humans them to be quite unlike humans now. He notes that as computers increase their computational power exponentially every ten years or so, he assumes that human brain power ought to show a similar surge. What these future humans will look like, he does not say, but he closes his chapter on Star Trek with the following warning: 'But by the end of the next millennium, if we get there, the difference from Star Trek will be fundamental.' Whatever differences may exist between the human species of today and that of tomorrow is surely less important than maintaining our inner sense of what it means to be human. In Hawking's nutshell, the universe is plenty big enough to accomodate whatever lifeform humanity may morph into. It is only the wisdom of thinkers like Hawking who can make the rest of us contemplate the possibilities of who we are and where we are going.
Rating:
Summary: Just great...
Review: If you liked a Brief History of Time, then this is its big sequel. This book is entertaining while showing the known theories of the univers,at least how Stephen Hawking believes it is. A great book to help the common people know something about science.
Rating:
Summary: Hawking's Best So Far
Review: A much easier read than Brief History of Time, Universe in a Nutshell doesn't try to give an in-depth approach to any one topic, preferring to cover a broad range of topics in Hawking's entertaining style of writing. My only complaint with this book was that it ended too soon; with the large number of (very good) illustrations in it, 200 pages is all too few. The writing has similarities to Asimov's essays, including science, history, biographies, and some personal anecdotes.
"Isaac Newton gave us the first mathematical model for time and space in is Principia Mathematica, published in 1687. Newton occupied the Lucasian chair at Cambridge that I know hold, though it wasn't electrically operated in his time." - p. 32, Chapter 2: The Shape of Time
Rating:
Summary: Great illustrations
Review: The best part about this book is the illustrations. Nearly every page is filled with pictures and diagrams which can make even a dry book entertaining. A few things in this book are merely re-hashes from his old books, but most of the content is fresh. I would also recommend the book STILL PITYING THE FOOL for an alternate view.
Rating: 
Summary: Fine illustrations; incomprehensible text
Review: I am a physician but have read a lot of popularized physics. Hawking's book is a major disappointment. That which is understandable (such as the Uncertainty Principle) is given no new treatment. The latter half of the book is completely incomprehensible. Hawking just throws out one assertion after another with nothing to link them logically or even to show how they relate to the physical world. The sections on time travel and p-branes are especially weak and not worth the time trying to read them. Kip Thorne has done a much more lucid treatment of time travel in his book, and Michio Kaku has done a better job explaining string theory. The strong aspect of _The Universe in a Nutshell_ is its illustrations; even if you didn't read any of the text, the illustrations are worth the purchase price.
Rating: 
Summary: Beautiful Presentation
Review: This book is a beautiful presentation of topics like relativity, and it includes some related history and personalities, but it is not for anyone interested in understanding any topics covered in the book. The coverage is so cursory that anyone who already has ANY understanding will be disappointed.
Rating: 
Summary: COLD LEFTOVERS
Review: AFTER READING "THEORY OF EVERYTHING" I WAS ANXIOUS TO READ ANOTHER WORK BY PROFFESSOR HAWKINGS.THIS IS A VASTLY INFERIOR BOOK.IT SEEMS TO MADE UP OF LEFTOVER PIECES AND LACKS COMPLETELY THE FOCUS AND CLEAR VISION OF "THEORY".I WAS DEEPLY DISAPPOINTED.I WOULD RATE THIS FAR BEHIND "BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME"[IF YOU HAPPEN TO BE A SERIOUS SCHOLAR] AND EVEN FARTHER BEHIND "THEORY OF EVERYTHING" WHICH IS CERTAINLY FAR EASIER TO UNDERSTAND.
| 
