The Universe in a Nutshell

His crash course on space. Reads like a textbook on theoretical physics and cosmology, but with some personality and humor. There’s illustrations or pictures on almost every page, which was much needed and appreciated to visualize whatever is being explained.

The only drawback is the lack of accessibility to anyone outside of a math/science background. Constants, integers, and pulsars are referenced casually. A violin is used to explain string theory in three paragraphs. There’s still plenty to gain from a general understanding of what’s being discussed. Hawking’s humor comes unexpectedly, like making a wheelchair joke while explaining quantum theory. His chapter on the future of humanity was great and discussed our exponential growth problem, modifying DNA, and the electric and chemical limitations of both our brains and computers. Then he sends the reader on a real trip in the last chapter with M-theory and branes.

In an alternate history my doppelganger may have given this 3 stars. It was a toss-up. Professor Hawking's book is too short, lacks some cohesion, and leaves me desiring elaboration and substantiation in some areas, particularly the discussion of string and M theory, and he lost me with cosmic strings. But, it did hold my attention firmly, and Hawking's entertaining style deserves much of the credit. And it only made me hunger for more. So, in the end it's a great book, worthy of its title, as a seed from which greater learning can grow.

Pretty mind-blowing. Did you know that time is pear-shaped? Yeah, me neither. For a while I could kind of pretend that I understood the theories that Hawking was talking about, but at a certain point I was just like, woah, I think you lost me at general relativity. But I appreciated that he made the effort for us non-positivist earthlings. He writes kind of like one would expect Sheldon Cooper from the Big Bang Theory to write, with a quirky and dry sense of humor. It's certainly nice to know that the universe is nothing quite like we would ever expect.

now listened to the audio