Rating: 
Summary: So how *does* this relate to A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME?
Review: "...minus several million for good thinking..."
- Zaphod Beeblebrox, THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY
The above quote (and the score I've assigned to this book) aren't in reference to the text or the author, but to the publishers. Why anyone with the brains of a sea urchin would cross Professor Hawking as they seem to have done is beyond me.
Briefly, save your money and buy THE ILLUSTRATED BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME instead of THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING, even if you're a compulsive Hawking completist. Alert readers should notice that Hawking doesn't hold the copyright for THEORY OF EVERYTHING, and attempted to block its publication. It was originally titled THE CAMBRIDGE LECTURES: LIFE WORKS, and appears to have been drawn from some recordings of lectures given by the professor years ago. (See the professor's web site for details.)
The "vanilla" (i.e., not the ILLUSTRATED) THEORY OF EVERYTHING consists of an introduction, seven lectures, and an index, without *any* illustrations or diagrams. Out of curiosity, I compared a library copy of it with THE ILLUSTRATED BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME.
Unless otherwise noted, each of the 7 lectures corresponds to a chapter of the same name in BRIEF HISTORY, in some segments only with slightly different paragraphing and punctuation (and occasionally the kind of spelling errors that creep in when one transcribes audio narration to text, if I may speculate as to the cause).
I don't understand why anyone would prefer the less polished text of THEORY OF EVERYTHING to THE ILLUSTRATED BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME, which not only has updates for new areas of research, but has been revised and rearranged to explain things more gently to the layperson.
"Ideas About the Universe" is essentially an extract from "Our Picture of the Universe", the first chapter of BRIEF HISTORY, with about one sentence's worth of drift per paragraph.
BRIEF HISTORY's version of "The Expanding Universe" has a more gradual introduction to the methods of measuring distances to nearby stars, and explains technical terms that may be unfamiliar to the non-scientist, such as luminosity.
THEORY OF EVERYTHING really shows its age in "Black Holes" when compared to BRIEF HISTORY, as Hawking has not been idle in that area over the years. The illustrated edition of BRIEF HISTORY has had a fair bit of interesting material added to "Black Holes", especially regarding cosmic censorship and naked singularities (Hawking having made a few *more* bets on the subject with Preskill and Thorne, although he paid off the Cygnus X-1 wager).
"Black Holes Ain't So Black" lacks major blocks of clarification/explanation added by Hawking to the version in BRIEF HISTORY.
BRIEF HISTORY's version of "The Origin and Fate of the Universe" goes into more detail: about the kinds of particles that are predicted to have come out of the big bang, and what sort of results we'd expect to see today if the predictions hold, and the scientists who first put forward these theories. BRIEF HISTORY also contains a much longer version of the "open questions" section, leading more gradually up to the discussion of Guth's development of the inflationary model.
"The Direction of Time" corresponds to BRIEF HISTORY's "The Arrow of Time" (which is worth picking up just for the picture of the keeper of the U.S. cesium clock). BRIEF HISTORY goes into more detailed examples to explain what Hawking means by the psychological arrow of time, with the simplest kind of "computer": an abacus.
"The Theory of Everything" mainly corresponds to BRIEF HISTORY's more modestly titled "The Unification of Physics", which is much more up to date (string theories are still covered, but a lot more work has been done in that area over the years). The tail end of the lecture corresponds to the ending of BRIEF HISTORY's "Conclusion".
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In summary, this is interesting stuff, but THE ILLUSTRATED BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME does it better.
Rating:
Summary: Ripoff by the publisher - DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK!!!
Review: Amazon.com should immediately cease selling this book. It was published without Hawking's permission and is a blatant effort to ripoff Stephen Hawking!!
Go to his website, http://www.hawking.org.uk/info/iindex.html, and you will see the following admonishment:
"IMPORTANT NOTE
It has come to our attention that the book "The Theory of Everything: The Origin and Fate of the Universe" has been published. Professor Hawking would like to make it clear that he has not endorsed this book. The text was written by him many years ago, however the material has already been published in books such as 'A Brief History of Time'. A complaint was made to the Federal Trade Commission in the US in the hope that they would prevent the publication. We would urge you not to purchase this book in the belief that Professor Hawking was involved in its creation."
Rating: 
Summary: No, there is too much - let me sum up.
Review: Hawking is always an interesting read. He publishes books often enough so that if you keep current, you are generally reviewing the same ideas, but with each publication, the state of the knowledge has advanced enough to warrant another summing up.Hawking's major claims to fame are his work on black holes and the boundary conditions of space/time, including event horizons, cosmic strings, and the potential for wormholes. He gives a fair amount of thought to the possibility of backwards time travel. Everybody agrees that moving forward in time is not a problem (see Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity 1905). Moving backwards in time is problematic, and Hawking believes that Nature will not allow it. There is a lot of work being done presently in this area, and some good thought experiments suggesting the possibility, but after reading Hawking, I am fairly convinced that we will not find it possible to move backwards in time, and even if it is possible, the time traveller will no longer be in his same universe, so why bother? Hawking aims his prose at the level of the intellectual Star Trek afficianado, which makes him an engaging read for the interested layman. He is careful never to include any mathematical equations in his books, using instead analogies and thought experiments. I recommend this book, deducting the 5th star only because much of the book is remedial.
Rating:
Summary: The Theory of Everything Review by Sameet Shah
Review: I always wondered as a child what's happening up there: Why are there so many stars that are so many light years away from us and why weren't there any next to us? That curiosity grew substantially after learning only certain facts about our universe in my freshman year. The Theory of Everything by Stephen Hawking is a non-fiction science literature that is constituted of almost every theory related to the incessantly evolving ideas about our Universe proposed by myriad scientists. It is a unique opportunity to explore the universe with the greatest mind since Einstein. Based on a series of lectures given at Cambridge University, the author's work introduced "the history of ideas about the universe" as well as today's most important scientific theories about time, space and the cosmos in a easy-to-understand way. I think that this book is by far the best scientific literary piece available that significantly delineates almost all of the theories ever proposed by some great philosophers such as Aristotle and Plato, and by some great scientists such as Albert Einstein etc.
The contextual information is lucidly laid out in seven lectures that are presented chronologically. As the author starts off by talking about the earliest theories ever proposed by the scientists and philosophers, my eyes were more and more compelled, by the detailed layout of the facts about our universe, to go on to the next line, to the next paragraph, to the next page, and at last to the conclusion of the book. Moreover, what made the book more interesting and comprehensible was the straightforward writing style; I didn't have to pay attention to every single word. One example: "The lower the mass of the black hole, the higher its temperature is. So as the black hole loses mass, its temperature and rate of emission increase." The language used by the author is very simple. Even the use of scientific terminology was minimal and if anything then it was explained with relevant examples.
Although there is no plot in this book, the factual information presented is no worse than any other plot such as a satirical one, or a one with mystery, or even a romantic one. The structural representation of the text is very clear; author first "develops" a theory, then explains it; after that he presents the examples that were conducted to prove the specific theory, then he presents the antithetical viewpoint presented by some other scientist and finally, he describes the solution that was either compromised by the two adversaries or the one that was more accepted.
I would recommend this book to people who are very interested in learning about the Earth and Space Science, and to those who have some basic knowledge of that specific field. The Theory of Everything would be well read by those studying religious theory and philosophy as well as those interested in physics. It is a book that should get anyone interested in questions such as "Why does anything exist?" and "Is there a God?" thinking. It should offer comfort, too, to those religious people who do believe in God, to learn that science hasn't really found anything to conflict with their beliefs in any meaningful way.
Rating: 
Summary: Decent Read, Despite Its "Unauthorized" Status
Review: I purchased this book in May of 2002 and read it only just now, so I missed the "controversy" surrounding it until it was too late. Evidently the great contemporary physicist Stephen Hawking gave this series of lectures at Cambridge, but their transcription and publication was done against Hawking's wishes/without his consent. In any event, the lectures are fairly easy to follow and understand, which is a much-appreciated feature for those of us less-than-nimble-minded-folks when it comes to physics. Most of the subjects in the book are touched on only briefly and in what one can safely assume as extremely watered-down, so the more scientific-minded among us are likely to be disappointed. For the rest of us, Hawking explains various subjects just enough for us to have a rough outline of them, that is, he takes the uninformed reader just far enough to catch a glimpse of contemporary conceptions of, inter alia, black holes, quantum mechanics (most notably string theory), and time, without having one's eye begin to glaze over. In any event the book presents Hawking's style and wit nicely. My own guess is that Hawking is upset that something he never intended to be published is indeed now published, that is, he never wanted rather casual remarks about this or that in a sense "codified" in print (although portions of it are written and appear elsewhere), but I quite liked it. (Another possibility is that Hawking isn't getting paid for this book, or isn't getting paid enough, but again, only Hawking really knows.) It is true, however, that on Hawking's website he politely asks that we not purchase this book, so the choice is ours. Minus the "controversy" surrounding this book, I'd probably give it four stars.
Rating:
Summary: Decent Read, Despite Its "Unauthorized" Status
Review: I purchased this book in May of 2002 and read it only just now, so I missed the "controversy" surrounding it until it was too late. Evidently the great contemporary physicist Stephen Hawking gave this series of lectures at Cambridge, but their transcription and publication was done against Hawking's wishes/without his consent. In any event, the lectures are fairly easy to follow and understand, which is a much-appreciated feature for those of us less-than-nimble-minded-folks when it comes to physics. Most of the subjects in the book are touched on only briefly and in what one can safely assume as extremely watered-down, so the more scientific-minded among us are likely to be disappointed. For the rest of us, Hawking explains various subjects just enough for us to have a rough outline of them, that is, he takes the uninformed reader just far enough to catch a glimpse of contemporary conceptions of, inter alia, black holes, quantum mechanics (most notably string theory), and time, without having one's eye begin to glaze over. In any event the book presents Hawking's style and wit nicely. My own guess is that Hawking is upset that something he never intended to be published is indeed now published, that is, he never wanted rather casual remarks about this or that in a sense "codified" in print (although portions of it are written and appear elsewhere), but I quite liked it. (Another possibility is that Hawking isn't getting paid for this book, or isn't getting paid enough, but again, only Hawking really knows.) It is true, however, that on Hawking's website he politely asks that we not purchase this book, so the choice is ours. Minus the "controversy" surrounding this book, I'd probably give it four stars.
Rating:
Summary: Do NOT buy this book! - NO stars
Review: I'd give this zero stars but Amazon won't let me... From Stephen W. Hawking's website: IMPORTANT NOTE
It has come to our attention that the book "The Theory of
Everything: The Origin and Fate of the Universe" has been published. Professor Hawking would like to make it clear that he has not endorsed this book. The text was written by him many years ago, however the material has already been published in books such as 'A Brief History of Time'. A complaint was made to the Federal Trade Commission in the US in the hope that they would prevent the publication. We would urge you not to purchase this book in the belief that Professor Hawking was involved in its creation. Since I'm unable to include the URL for Professor Hawking's website, e-mail me and I'll send it to you...
Rating:
Summary: Hawking he has not endorsed this book
Review: IMPORTANT NOTE
It has come to our attention that the book "The Theory of Everything: The Origin and Fate of the Universe" has been published. Professor Hawking would like to make it clear that he has not endorsed . The text was written by him many years ago, however the material has already been published in books such as 'A Brief History of Time'. A complaint was made to the Federal Trade Commission in the US in the hope that they would prevent the publication. We would urge you not to purchase this book in the belief that Professor Hawking was involved in its creation.
Rating:
Summary: The Theory of Everything: The Origin and Fate of the Univers
Review: It has come to our attention that the book "The Theory of Everything: The Origin and Fate of the Universe" has been published. Professor Hawking would like to make it clear that he has not endorsed this book. The text was written by him many years ago, however the material has already been published in books such as 'A Brief History of Time'. A complaint was made to the Federal Trade Commission in the US in the hope that they would prevent the publication. We would urge you not to purchase this book in the belief that Professor Hawking was involved in its creation.
Rating: 
Summary: Not Hawking's best work
Review: This book is a collection of lectures in which Steven attempts to built a framework for understanding the universe through gradually more and more complex steps. Like Brief History of Time, it is cumulative, in that previous chapters are mostly rquired for subsequent. I thought Steven's personal agendas come out too strongly in this book, specifically his glossing over of string theory and multi-dimensional spacetime. This entire line of research is relegated to exactly 3 sentences. He also ignores most of the problems that occur when trying to integrate quantum mechanics and gravity, choosing to try to find ways around this necessary integration instead. Much of the book is spent trying to prove a non-singularity-based Big Bang theory in an effort to retain the standard-model laws of physics all the way back to the beginning of time. Regarding the quantum mechanical tide in the early 19th century, Eistein's famously responded, "God does not play dice with the Universe." Hawking is fighting a similar multi-dimensional tide that increasingly provides a far more elegant view of the Universe. If you're looking for your first Hawking book, this isn't it. Buy Brief History instead. It's dated, but much better.
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