# 1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A whirlwind tour of fundamental physics and cosmology. The Wall Street Journal Fascinating . . . a wealth of ideas [that] leave us with a clearer understanding of modern physics in all its invigorating complexity. Los Angeles Times When and how did the universe begin? Why are we here? What is the nature of reality? Is the apparent grand design of our universe evidence of a benevolent creator who set things in motion or does science offer another explanation? In The Grand Design , Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow present the most illuminating scientific thinking about these and other abiding mysteries of the universe, in nontechnical language marked by brilliance and simplicity. According to quantum theory, the cosmos does not have just a single existence or history. The authors explain that we ourselves are the product of quantum fluctuations in the early universe and show how quantum theory predicts the multiverse the idea that ours is just one of m
Sure to dazzle all those who loved "Longitude" and "Into theWild", this nautical adventure aboard a 50-foot sailboat charts thebleakest and most awesome landscape of the planet--and one man'sfierce will to understand it.
What conceptual blind spot kept the ancient Greeks (unlike theIndians and Maya) from developing a concept of zero? Why did St.Augustine equate nothingness with the Devil? What tortuous meansdid 17th-century scientists employ in their attempts to create avacuum? And why do contemporary quantum physicists believe that thevoid is actually seething with subatomic activity? You’ll find theanswers in this dizzyingly erudite and elegantly explained book bythe English cosmologist John D. Barrow. Ranging throughmathematics, theology, philosophy, literature, particle physics,and cosmology, The Book of Nothing explores the enduringhold that vacuity has exercised on the human imagination. Combininghigh-wire speculation with a wealth of reference that takes inFreddy Mercury and Shakespeare alongside Isaac Newton, AlbertEinstein, and Stephen Hawking, the result is a fascinatingexcursion to the vanishing point of our knowledge.
