The companion volume to "A Brief History of Time" won the Aventis Science Book Award, the world's most prestigious popular science book award.
"The Universe in a Nutshell" is a popular science book with pictures and texts, covering many cutting-edge concepts such as general relativity, quantum theory, black holes, inflation, time travel, string theory, and supergravity. The theory of relativity and quantum theory are the greatest scientific achievements of the 20th century. Especially the former, he is completely a great construct of human wisdom. Therefore, the first chapter of "The Universe in a Nutshell", a brief history of the theory of relativity, is mainly about the life of Einstein. Quantum theory is a passive product of experimental observations, and its meaning is still unclear. In general relativity, space-time is no longer a passive background, but an active participant in the evolution of the universe. The distribution of matter curves space-time. To talk about space and time outside the universe now and to speculate on these concepts is to go back to before St. Augustine. Newton's view of time and space is an illusion, and the only function of illusion is to comfort the weak.
The title of the book "The Universe in a Nutshell" comes from a line in Shakespeare's play "Hamlet": "Even if I were shut up in a nutshell, I would still consider myself the king of infinite space." For Stephen Hawking, this sentence is perfect.
Reader comments
I especially loved the parts of the book about time travel and the mysteries of the universe, it was simply amazing! But I don't like that thing called quantum theory, it's too complicated. But overall, this book opened my eyes to what a great scientist Hawking is!
I especially loved the parts of the book about time travel and the mysteries of the universe, it was simply amazing! But I don't like that thing called quantum theory, it's too complicated. But overall, this book opened my eyes to what a great scientist Hawking is!