This book is written by physicist Stephen Hawking. The introductory part of the book is written by American Astronomer and Science communicator Carl Edward Sagan. This book is an theoretical Cosmology, which gives in depth knowledge of physics to the readers. It was originally published in the year 1988 by Bantam Dell Publishing Group. The book covers 11 chapters within 201 pages.
The book starts with Acknowledgements and Introduction. Just like any other book, this 2 sections has been provided just to get to know who the author is and why he has written this book. Main reading begins from:
Chapter 1: Our Picture of the Universe:
This chapter provides us the basic knowledge of the universe and how we see it. It tells us about the beliefs people were having from the times of Aristotle, to the times of Einstein. It also describes the size of observable universe in 1988. Overall this chapter remarks the contribution of number of scientists and physicist, to provide us idea about the universe.
Chapter 2: Space and Time:
What is space? What is time? Why time is immortal? Is 4 Dimensional space possible? What is absolute time, absolute past and absolute future? Answer to such questions has been provided in this chapter. It also describes the apparent and actual position of stars.
Chapter 3: The Expanding Universe:
Our galaxy is slowly rotating and continuously expanding. The effects of such events are discussed in this chapter. Also, it tells us about the big bang theory and its reality.
Chapter 4: The Uncertainty Principle:
Nothing in this world is 100% accurate. There are number on things on which the prediction depends on, and are inescapable. This chapter tells us about the importance of the Uncertainty Principle and the Quantum Mechanics.
Chapter 5: Elementary Particles and the Forces of Nature:
Atoms are the building blocks of everything we see, touch or feel. They are the elementary particles of the world. But, is there anything like antiparticles? Which carries the opposite nature of the particle and can destroy the particle? Along with the answers of such questions, we get to know about the various forces in the universe and how they act.
Chapter 6: Black Holes:
Here comes the most awaited and exciting chapter of the book: 'The Black Holes'. It tells us about what is a black hole, how it is created, what is inside the black hole and how far are they from us. All this questions has been answered by number of scientists on the basis of past theories and new predictions.
Chapter 7: Black Holes Ain't So Black:
Surprise Surprise! Black holes are not black!!! Author describes the number of experiments, predictions and theories that suggests that Black Holes are not black. Why is it so? What will happen if someone falls into a Black Hole? Answer to such important questions are given in this chapter.
Chapter 8: The Origin and Fate of The Universe:
The Big Bang theory suggests the origin of our galaxy. But what about the origin of the universe? Why we see the universe the way we see it? Do god really exist? Such a whopping questions are answered in this chapter. Apart from that, there is a lot of information regarding the day to day words that scientists use.
Chapter 9: The Arrow of Time:
Time is immortal. Nothing can destroy the time. But there is a specific direction in which the time flows. This chapter tells us about how the time flows and what will be the effect on the universe if time flows backwards.
Chapter 10: The Unification of Physics:
Physics is the most crucial and important part of the human race. It has a great number of theories, practicals, predictions, and a lot more. This chapter describes how we can unify various theories of physics to touch the new heights in Science.
Chapter 11: Conclusion:
After reading this many chapters, getting through the number of theories, answering various questions, what do we conclude? The final summary of the book is mentioned in this chapter.
Overall this book is a great art piece of Physics and Cosmology. If you have intrest in physics then do read this book, and if you don't have intrest in physics then also read this book, it will create your intrest in physics.
Some key lines from the book:
Any physical theory is always provisional, in the sense that it is only a hypothesis: you can never prove it. No matter how many times the result of experiments agree with some theory, you can never be sure that the next time the result will not contradict the theory.
The eventual goal of Science is to provide a single theory that describes the whole universe.
One certainly cannot predict future events exactly if one cannot even measure the present state of the universe precisely!
A region of space-time, from which it is not possible to escape to reach a distant observer. This region is what we now call a black hole.
Black holes are not really black after all: they glow like a hot body, and the smaller they are, the more they glow. So, paradoxically, smaller black holes might actually turn out to be easier to detect than large ones!
A scientific theory is just a mathematical model we make to describe our observations: it exists only in our minds.
Things always tends to go wrong!
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