The Theory of Everything (TOE). Review on Brief History of Time, A - Stephen Hawking

I would call this book one of the most important and nice books I have ever read. From the point of view of a layman, it is exceedingly good. It however does not go indepth in explaining a lot of other concepts which could have made the understanding of the Universe as a whole simpler.

While reading his book one needs to bear in mind two things:

1. The first is that this book was written relatively long back, and the theories which existed at that time (The Standard Model) were not able to explain a lot of things. Among these are stuff like how the universe came into existence in the first place. However the most crucial thing which the standard model cannot explain and which has plaugued the high energy physicists for a long time is this: we as of now know for sure that our universe is defined by four forces (a)The strong force which keeps the nuclie together even though they have a positive core(b)a weak force responsible for radiation(c)the electromagnetic force which is by now well known(d)and the gravity which is also well known. The problem is that the standard model cannot explain the existence of gravity in very small dimensions. And this comes about because of the fact of Heisenberg's Uncertainity principle.

   
   




2. The second thing is that since the time the book had been written, there is a theory doing rounds in scientific community, but still not fully developed, which can explain everything. Even how the universe came into existence in the first place. This theory,also sometimes called the Theory of Everything is known as string thoery. It can explain virtually everything which the standard model can and goes way beyond it to explain things which standard model cannot.

   
   

Having said this I woudl add that this book esentially explains a lot about the universe keeping the standard model into the picture, therefore it DOES NOT answer all your questions regarding nature as some members have written in their reviews. But one cannot blame the author for that because the string thoery was still in its infancy at the time when the book was written

As far as the book itself is concerned, it is worth reading owing to the following reasons:

1. The string theory explains nearly everything that the standard model does so that if one is familiar with the standard model then an understanding of the universe is easier as one could grasp the string theory much better.

   
   




2. A lot of features like the black holes, curled dimensions and all are nicely explained and are the basic tenets of science as of today.

   
   




3. It does not require a lot of mathematical insight for one to understand such a book. And thats precisely the reason why its a masterpiece.