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.
Rating: 
Summary: Engaging introduction to the man and his work
Review: This is a collection of seven related lectures by Hawking originally published in 1996 under the title, The Cambridge Lectures: Life Works. He does not cover as much ground here as in did in A Brief History of Time, but what he does cover he does so in a charming and engaging style. There are some few statements here that could be interpreted as less than modest--although not by me--and a mistaken prediction or two, which may be a reason that Hawking is not pleased with this book's publication. He might also object to the title, since neither a "Theory of Everything" nor a conclusive answer to the origin and fate of the universe are presented. However, Hawking does address these questions, and his expression is interesting to read and has the agreeable characteristic of being laconic. There are no equations in the book, no mathematics as such, and everything is explained in language that would be intelligible to a high school student. There are the usual droll Hawking jokes about God and His intentions, facetious, epigram-like understatements (I have done a lot of work on black holes, and it would all be wasted if it turned out that black holes do not exist. p. 66) and witty asides about the convergence of politics on physics, as when he mentions a particle accelerator the size of the Solar System that "would not be funded under current economic conditions." A good chunk of the book is devoted to black holes (about which Hawking is or was the world's foremost authority) and whether they have "hair" and "sweat" or not. Hawking avers on page 92 that if a primordial black hole is discovered "emitting a lot of gamma and X rays," he will get the Nobel Prize. This is an ironic lament since, as he explains later on, it is most likely that even if these very difficult to observe and very ancient black holes do exist, they are mostly evaporated by now, and so it is probable there will be no Nobel for Hawking. He also discusses a "no boundary condition" (p.119) of the big bang universe which seems to begin and end in a singularity in real-time while in imaginary time there are no singularities, just beginning and ending poles, like the north and south poles of the finite, unbounded surface of the earth. (p. 139) I especially like this idea since it does away with the infinite singularity and the theological implications that some draw from such a beginning of the universe. As Hawking asks rhetorically, in a "completely self-contained" universe with no boundary or edge--a universe "neither created nor destroyed"--what place would there be for a creator? (p. 126) He also addresses string theory, and I was pleased to read that he is no more enamored of all those little curled up dimensions than I am. He says the theory has several other problems that need to be worked out, not the least of which is that we still don't know whether all the infinities will cancel out. (p. 159) Hawking closes with his ideas about the prospect for a Theory of Everything. He gives three possibilities: (1) There is a "complete unified theory which we will someday discover..." (2) There's no ultimate theory, "just an infinite sequence of theories that describe the universe more and more accurately." (3) There's no theory, period: "Events...occur in a random and arbitrary manner." He seems to like (1) believing "that there is a good chance...[for] a complete unified theory by the end of the century..." Apparently--since he is speaking from circa 1996--he means the twentieth century. In that case he's wrong since we haven't yet gotten such a theory. For the record, I like (2). I think that our present "laws" are approximations that we will continue to improve on. I believe we develop the ability through science to better and better order our environment and to increase our knowledge. I don't believe we are actually discovering "ultimate truth." Hawking asks here as he has elsewhere, "Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing?" Why is there anything at all? He believes that if we do discover a complete theory, we will then be able to answer this question, and then we would "know the mind of God."
Rating: 
Summary: ATTENTION!!! This is NOT Hawking's book!
Review: This is from the Stephen Hawking website:
"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. "
| 
