The Grand Design

The Grand Design

Summary

In the last thirty years of his life Albert Einstein searched for a unified theory - a theory which could describe all the forces of nature in a single framework. But the time was not right for such a discovery in Einstein's day.

Neither was the time right when, in 1988, Professor Stephen Hawking wrote A Brief History of Time in which he took us on a journey through classical physics, Einstein's theory of relativity, quantum physics and string theory in order to explain the universe that we live in. He concluded, like Einstein, that science may soon arrive at the long sought after 'Theory of Everything'.

In this ground-breaking new work, Professor Hawking and renowned science writer Leonard Mlodinow have drawn on forty years of Hawking's own research and a recent series of extraordinary astronomical observations and theoretical breakthroughs to reveal an original and controversial theory. They convincingly argue that scientific obsession with formulating a single new model may be misplaced, and that, instead, by synthesising existing theories we may discover the key to finally understanding the universe's deepest mysteries.

Written with the clarity and lively style for which Hawking is famous, The Grand Design is an account of Hawking's quest to fuse these different strands of scientific theory. It examines the differences between past and future, explains the nature of reality and asks an all-important question: How far can we go in our search for understanding and knowledge?

About the authors

Stephen Hawking

STEPHEN HAWKING was a brilliant theoretical physicist and is generally considered to have been one of the world's greatest thinkers. He held the position of Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge for thirty years and is the author of A Brief History of Time which was an international bestseller. His other books for the general reader include A Briefer History of Time, the essay collection Black Holes and Baby Universe, The Universe in a Nutshell, The Grand Design, and Black Holes: The BBC Reith Lectures.
He died on 14 March, 2018.
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Leonard Mlodinow

Leonard Mlodinow is the best selling author of The Drunkard's Walk, Subliminal and Elastic. He co-authored two books with Stephen Hawking and later wrote an acclaimed memoir, Stephen Hawking, about their time together. He has written for television, including multiple episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, as well as helping Steven Spielberg and Robin Williams make a video game. There are now over one million copies of Leonard Mlodinow's books in print.
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