Rating: 
Summary: Surprized to see so many positive reviews
Review: The first few chapters up to the middle of the book were useful information on the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics. I enjoyed reading those chapters. From the middle of the book to the end, Hawking gets side tracked. The theme of the book changes from a scientific point of view to more of a plain unscientific talk to philosophical and even theological. Hawking adds many remarks on what God decides, what God wants, or what God does, which do not follow a scientific argument. Focus is degraded towards the end of the book by asking irrelevant questions such as: what happens if you go to the past and kill your great great great grandfather when he was a child?
In summary, as much as I respect Hawking as a person and a physicist, I found about half of the material in this book useful and the other half either confusing or vague. I am a bit surprised to see so many reviews with full 5 star ratings. There are other books that cover physics, astronomy, and cosmology in a simple and clear language (Gamow has a few gems).
Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful Primer On The Nature Of the Universe!
Review: There was a joke going around shortly after Stephen Hawking's wonderful book came out in 1988 that it was the most popular best-seller that no one ever read, dooming all those copies to lay instead as a prop on millions of coffee tables as a conversation piece. Yet for those of us persistent enough to peer through the covers at the remarkable exposition of quite complicated scientific ideas lay open and rendered comprehensible in his clear, crisp style, the book is indeed a veritable treasure trove of layman's explanations for some wondrous scientific phenomena. Hawking, a Lecturer in Physics at Cambridge University, has an unusual ability to avoid all but a bare minimum of that oh-so stupefying technical scientific jargon in explaining such aspects of our universe as black holes, the nature of time, the so-called "big bang", and of course, gravity itself.He is addressing the very nature of physics as he plows through these quite centrally and enduring mysteries of the universe. Therefore, the rhetorical questions posed are obviously designed to elucidate some interesting, provocative, and fairly straightforward answers to timeless pondering we all have. Yet one's mind often boggles at the sheer scale of our imaginings, with concepts so vast and so dislocated in our ordinary day-to- day time-space continuum as to give even the most intrepid questioner among us a little case of vertigo. This only serves to magnify the breadth of Hawking's accomplishment in writing this very approachable and readable tome describing the both the origins and the very nature of the universe. Given the more than ten years since the original publication of Professor Hawking's fascinating book, this new and much revised edition shows how many of his perceptions, interpretations, and theoretical observations have been substantiated by further scientific investigation and discovery. With these extraordinary revelations included within the pages of the revised edition, it becomes an even more impressive and quite dazzling invitation to learn more about the incredible capabilities of theoretical science on the one hand, and of the universe itself on the other. This is a marvelous book, and one I can heartily recommend. Enjoy!
Rating: 
Summary: what a disappointment
Review: this book is exclusively for physics students and that should have been made clear in the recommendations. I read it half way through and could not finished, for the first time in my life. I read each page three times, and at the middle I tried to review what I learned, and I realized I did not have a clue of what the book is all about. Certainly is not about the "hitory of time". Waiste of money and, more important, a huge waste of my time.
Rating:
Summary: a marvel of a book
Review: This book is truly a gem.. small volume but packed with a density of information..
Explore fascinating topics you could not think about in your wildest DREAMS.. topics are Black holes, Entropy, Origins of universe, Time Travel. Hawkings is truly a genius among geniuses.
(...) If you can finish the book, the knowledge is well worth it.
Rating:
Summary: a marvel of a book
Review: This book is truly a gem.. small volume but packed with a density of information..
Explore fascinating topics you could not think about in your wildest DREAMS.. topics are Black holes, Entropy, Origins of universe, Time Travel. Hawkings is truly a genius among geniuses.
(...) If you can finish the book, the knowledge is well worth it.
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