The Universe in a Nutshell

I truly enjoyed this book. I love how as he speaks on a subject, Stephen throws in little tid-bits about his life (like where someone has sat in his chair at cambridge, or funny things about his daughter's birth).

I imagine the science and math would be hard to follow for people not previously "in" on some of the lingo and concepts, but he seems to break it down well enough though.

He repeats himself sometimes, I'm not sure if thats the reader making a mistake, or a typographical thing, but I noticed it more than once. Also, he reviews concepts he's already illustrated earlier, as if this book were written for students and under the assumtion only individual chapters will be read.

I love how he gives credit, even to scientists that differ in opinion from him. He breaks down to the almost stupid level some concepts to help you understand why they will work, or not work. I also love how he dives into the risky waters of time travel and religion as he talks, and explains. I'm sure many out there will have arguements with his logic on a thing or two, but who can argue with his courage to discuss the previously undiscussable (well, outside of sci-fi).

A great read, and it covers such a broad spectrum of space-science. I recommend it to anyone who craves to understand anything about the universe from black-holes to parallel dimensions.

Dr. Hawkins did it right this time (no pun intended) with this book. If your eyes glazed over in an attempt to follow along and wrap your head around the physics theories in his first book, your are going to love this one. As he explains in the book's introduction, in the first book the chapters (or ideas) built upon each successive chapter. If you didn't understand after chapter two, you could not hope to understand chapter 3,4,5, etc. With this book, he builds the foundation in chapters 1 & 2. So if chapter 3 fizzes your gray matter, you can skip it because the remaining chapters stand on their own.

If you are a space time junkie that is fascinated by space time and quantum mechanics you are in for a very special treat. This man's mind is as special as the theories he explains. This is a great book. Buy it.

This book was full of really great concepts and ideas that got me thinking and inspired. Although I was lost a couple times throughout the book, most of the time the ideas where very simply put using everyday metaphors anyone would understand.

After completing this book, I was amazed that Hawking would claim in the introduction that it was meant to be "easier to understand" than "A brief history of time". It has been several years since I have read the latter book, but I wouldn't rate "The universe in a nutshell" as easier. It was tough going. It was, however, fascinating, and what I enjoyed most were some of Hawking's less inaccessible comments on the future of scientific progress and human existence in the later chapters. The narration was reasonably good. This was well worth the purchase.

I have always been amazed that Stephen Hawkings' books have been so popular, as his subject is so difficult. There is no easy way to get to concepts like Yang Mills fields, multidimensional space-time, and quantum theories of gravitation. Hawkings is a brilliant and informal guide, but there is no way around that fact that the concepts of 20th century physics are very difficult (let alone 21st century physics). In part because these concepts are so familiar to Hawkings himself, he does not do a very good job of connecting them with things that might be more familiar. Or maybe it is more accurate to say that he does his best, but the concepts remain very complex and remote.

In general, this is an engaging book, but I was hanging on by my fingernails trying to keep up.

The English mathematician/philospher Bertrand Russell once claimed that popular books on relativity become unintelligible just when they begin to discuss something of real substance. One cannot help feeling that this is once again the case with Stephen Hawking's audiobook. I bought this book and I have been moving the narrator "back in forth in time" with my replay button, listening and relistening to what Hawking writes. The naration is outstanding. However, the organization seems higgly-piggly. We are given tastes of general relativity, particle spins, string theory, multiple quantum histories, black holes, etc. But,there is never any pause to fully explicate what is going on. I for one would prefer listening to Professor Hawking tell us how he visualizes the electro-magnetic field, as well as how light propagates within it. What is the difference between an electron (which is intimately tied up with electricity) and a photon of light (which is apparently created by undulations in the electro-magnetic field)? I wish Audible would offer audiobooks by Paul Davies. Professor Davies is somewhat more experienced at explaining things to us students in the back of the class. Then again, perhaps that's the nature of books which give us the universe in a nutshell. The nut is too hard to crack.

Interesting concise funny

Hawking does a great job in summing up a bunch of physics questions and theories in this book. He also reveals that he has a sense of humor reminiscent of Douglas Adams of Hitchhikers Guide.

No

I am still perplexed by the chapter on the histories of the universe but the way he explained time travel and other theories was very straightforward and interesting.

Wow, I really tried to understand everything Dr. Hawking was saying, but most of it was just a blur. I feel that I am fairly intelligent and I usually love watching documentaries on the Discovery Channel and PBS, but this book makes me feel stupid. I don't think that anyone without at least 2 or 3 college level classes in physics could truly claim to understand this material.
I have the utmost respect for Dr. Hawking and I appreciate the way he tried to dumb this down for the layman, but this material is just to complicated for the average listener. I would try to listen to it all again, but without advanced mathematics and science degrees, what would be the point? Maybe he should just start lecturing in binary.

Of course!...for somebody like me who has no idea about quantum mechanics, the mysteries of time and space and has very little knowledge about science, this is a great book to start and study. I believe that the only requirement is a lot of curiosity about how our reality may look like from different angles and different sizes...

Stephen Hawking rocked this book by explaining everything in simple terms and keeping a casual type of humor that kept me laughing, wondering, and completely amazed all at the same time.

For someone with a very limited background in Physics I found I could grasp and be highly entertained by the material. If you are interested at all in AstroPhysics this is a must read. I will be leveraging this title as my foundation and will be looking for other titles to expand on the subject.