La Teoría Del Todo.- Stephen W. Hawking


"Sin embargo, si descubrimos una teoría completa, debería en su momento ser comprensible en sus líneas generales por todos, no solo por unos pocos científicos. Entonces todos seremos capaces de tomar parte en la discusión de por qué el universo existe. Si encontramos la respuesta a ello, sería el triunfo definitivo de la razón humana, pues entonces conoceríamos la mente de Dios."


El origen y el destino del universo. Cuestiones que sacan el sueño a más de un científico para dar una explicación; pero que también son inquietantes para el hombre "común" si se las piensa con seriedad. A través de siete conferencias, el renombrado físico teórico y cosmólogo británico Stephen Hawking, nos adentrará en la historia del universo desde las primitivas teorías griegas, pasando por la revolución copernicana luego, para después hablarnos sobre los agujeros negros y la expansión del Universo.


A pesar de ser un libro de corta extensión, La Teoría Del Todo contiene muchísima información, que si bien a un experto puede resultarle escasa, no es así para el común denominador de las personas a las que está orientado el libro en si. Con un lenguaje simple y directo, Hawking nos explica diversos temas que abarcan la historia, el Big Bang, las distintas corrientes de pensamiento científico, origen de los agujeros negros y su comportamiento, la expansión y la contracción del Universo, el uso del efecto Doppler, la teoria de la relatividad, Newton, la teoría de las cuerdas, etc, etc. También durante las conferencias, un tema recurrente es el "conflicto" entre la ciencia y Dios, que si bien puede ser bastante escabroso de tratar porque puede herir susceptibilidades, Hawking lo hace con mucho respeto.


Este es sin dudas un libro muy interesante y que aunque los temas son tratados resumidamente y no indaga en la parte matemática de la física, creo que es una lectura a la que hay que acercarse con al menos una minúscula idea de los tópicos incluidos o con ganas de aprender sobre ellos. Al cerrar va a ser difícil  no pensar en la infinitésima existencia de nuestra persona con respecto al Universo y tal vez eso nos impulse a dejar de perder el tiempo en cosas vanas y hacer valer los poquitos años que circulamos por este patio.

Gran manera de romper nuestras barreras mentales por medio de la ciencia.

Коротка історія,набір теорій і трохи філософських  роздумів на тему.. тобто автор просто згрупував невеликийкий конспект,який ще містить пару розділів про його власні теорії
Як людина,яка трохи в темі, почуваюся розгублено. Деяка  інформація дуже проста і загальна,а через деяку доводиться продиратись(через  термінологію і підхід до подання інформації).
Для когось плюс,для когось мінус, відступи в книзі дуже великі. Тобто тексту в книзі на 150 сторінок мало.
Гарні картинки.
З мінусів ще, до картинок є описи( що добре), але інколи вони займають багато місця і через то загальга інформація,яка є в книзі, не поміщається на сторінку( і читачу доводиться  або преривати основну думку,і читати опис до картинки,або закінчити основний абзац,і постійно повертатися до опису картинок)

Black holes, stars, the beauty of a supernova and the universe. Take these together and mix them with a scientist: Boom! An explosion! A Big Bang! The theory of almost everything we are eager to understand about the beginning of the times. This review will include a brief history of this book [PUN]!

Not only did Stephen Hawking describe those concepts easily in this book, but he also made us have free access to his deep studies. He was born exactly 300 years after Galileo's death and became one of the most influential people in the area of Cosmology. Don't you feel a little bit scary to get his work to read? Don't you have the idea that it'll be tough and appalling? I'm here to demystify your wrong judgements towards this book!

First, is it paid off to read the analysis of a scientist who is not always right? Sure it is! For someone who admits having made a mistake in his first theory of black holes, Hawking deserves more than the knighthood offered by the Queen Elizabeth, which he declined by the way. The term black hole was coined in 1969 by the American scientist John Wheeler. I would rather grant you an excerpt from the book than trying to explain it to you:

"... a star that was sufficiently massive and compact would have such a strong gravitational field that light could not escape. Any light emitted from the surface of the star would be dragged back by the star's gravitational attraction before it could get very far. Although we would not be able to see them because the light from them would not reach us, we would still feel their gravitational attraction. Such objects are what we now call black holes, because that is what they are—black voids in space." (Page 37)

"To understand how a black hole might be formed, we first need an understanding of the life cycle of a star. A star is formed when a large amount of gas, mostly hydrogen, starts to collapse in on itself due to its gravitational attraction. As it contracts, the atoms of the gas collide with each other more and more frequently and at greater and greater speeds—the gas heats up. Eventually the gas will be so hot that when the hydrogen atoms collide they no longer bounce off each other but instead merge with each other to form helium atoms. The heat released in this reaction, which is like a controlled hydrogen bomb, is what makes the stars shine. This additional heat also increases the pressure of the gas until it is sufficient to balance the gravitational attraction, and the gas stops contracting. It is a bit like a balloon where there is a balance between the pressure of the air inside, which is trying to make the balloon expand, and the tension in the rubber, which is trying to make the balloon smaller." (Pages 38-39).

"According to the theory of relativity, nothing can travel faster than light. Thus, if light cannot escape, neither can anything else. Everything is dragged back by the gravitational field. So one has a set of events, 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." (Page 44)

Yes, black holes are not black and Stephen was humble enough to carry on studies to correct his thoughts and publicly announce his misunderstanding regarding his set of principles in print. Einstein had the guts to confirm that his cosmological constant was an incorrect belief, Stephen followed his steps and it may be one of the reasons we look up to them both. I do, wouldn't you?

Having said that, many may think that Hawking does not believe in God, yet what we see here is that he discourses about the Big Bang Theory and gives God the credit for this event. Along the pages you also read how the Catholic Church admits in 1951 that the Big Bang is in accordance with the Bible. The Catholic Church misperceived Copernicus and Galileo regarding their theory of the Earth being the centre of the universe and it invited some experts to advise it on cosmology in the Vatican in 1981. It was when Hawking attended this conference that his interest in the origin of the universe was reawakened. The pope told the scientist that it was okay to study the evolution of the universe after the big bang, but they "should not inquire into the big bang itself because that was the moment of creation and therefore the work of God".

From my point of view, Stephen's search for the theory of everything is his inner search to meet and understand a real God. His fascination with the universe leads his thoughts to the Hands of a creator that has put forward the laws that rule the cosmos. So as to justify my idea for that, just take a look at his last words on this book: "if we do discover a complete theory... we would know the mind of God."

So, what's the "Theory of Everything"? Well, this is only a simple review and I don't like spoilers! Do you really think I would give you "everything"? [PUN]. Read the book, I strongly recommend it and I guarantee it'll be BRIEF ;)
Larissa Fauber

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This book is a boon for physics lovers. The author didn't include complicated mathematical equations. He kept the language simple and easily understandable. The author mixes science with philosophy. It exhibits a subtle sense of humor in the book. It's a short read. Stephen Hawking poses interesting questions about God. All in all, a recommended reading.

Read full review here -  Books Chharming

[ AUDIOBOOK ]
Story: 4/5
Audio: 4/5
Narrated by Michael York.

I don’t tend to read non-fiction, but when I do, I happen to search for things that would make me understand the world a little better.

Stephen Hawking was a remarkable man that wondered about important topics such as the existence of black holes and everything that comes with them. In here he talks about the expansion of the universe, the different theories of how it was created and it also brings a few questions to the table –questions that a normal person wouldn’t even dare to dream of.

Still, he has a great way of explaining things so that everybody can understand and I’m grateful for that. The narrator, too, makes a wonderful job and it almost feels like he’s giving you a mind blowing lecture.

I hope I can listen to his other books because every time I look for space related articles, I’m just mind blown. The universe is so damn big; I cannot believe men dare to believe they’re the only ones in here.

I read this because of my goal for 2021 tp read 1 book of my subject to increase my knowledge more than text books.
The author writes this book considering that if any non physicist read this book he can also understand this ,yes he needed to know some terms but he can google it or ask to anyone who have a background in physics . The language was simple and i suggest you to read by audiobook because the narrator does an excellent job .
Now comes what is inside the book if you are interested in universe and how universe is made and what is black hole and how much we know about it . Everything is there without any mathematical terms .
And the main purpose of this book is a step towards the understanding of the creation of universe and gives us some idea what could be done in future and give some possible comclusion that may be true .

If you like learning about new thing this would be a great book for you .

i will reread this book and write all the terms so that if anyone who have little knowledge of science can enjoy or understand this masterpiece

This definitely was a nice read. After reading it for a second time, I can say, all-in-all it's a good starter book for most people that are not much familiar with physics.

After all Stephen Hawking was not only a scientist, but also a science communicator, maybe not as much as people like Carl Sagan, or Neil Tyson, but considering his disability, a pretty good one I'd say.

Some of my friends think for one to understand such a book, you need to have some understanding in concepts like general relativity, or quantum physics. While that will definitely help you have an easier time reading such a book, but the way Stephen wrote this, helped me, as someone not versed in those concepts, understand most of the topics to some extent; and so I think it can help most of you as well.

One other good thing about this book, is the fact that it's a quick read, and might motivate some people to give it a shot, whom will avoid it otherwise. This could even give you enough inertia to move to more-in-depth books on the subject.

Bottom-line, I recommend this book for you. Have a good time reading it in case you decided to. :)

4.5 Stars
A great introduction to those who wanna start reading science non-fiction books!

Хорошая книга чтобы "быстро" пробежаться по истории открытий, сделанных в физике за последние несколько сотен лет. Кроме того, понравилось с какой относительной простотой подается информации про такие теоретические концепции как "черная дыра", излучение Хокинга, теория струн и другие относительно новые физические теории. Однако, не могу сказать, что книга написана на пятерку.

Мне остались непонятны многие теоретические концепты и "заумные фразы", что я записываю как "минус" автору (по крайней мере после прочтения биографии Эйнштенйа а. Айзексона). Книга дает базовое "научпоповское" понимание основных идей и концепций, к которым физика пришла за последние ~50 лет.

Если у вас присутствует понимание более ранних фундаментальных трудов, напр. Общей теории относительности, то я могу вас порадовать – книга зайдет 100%. В обратном случае, думаю, будет достаточно непонятных вещей. Книга не раскрывает сути и не приводит легких и читаемых аналогий с физическими законами. В целом автор не старался раскрыть суть открытых законов и теорий, фокусируясь больше не самой истории и хронологии открытий.

И последнее – вы считаете, что способны осилить простейшие концепции и разобраться в хронологии, я советую прочитать первые 2 главы. Уверен, они расскажут вам гораздо больше, чем читать википедию или смотреть "познавательный" контент на YouTube.

*Book review by Danyal Talpur*

The book the "theory of everything" is written by Stephen Hawking. This book is mostly about Cosmology. This book is comprised of seven lectures, these lectures are on the creation and the fate of the universe, Black holes, direction of time, and the theory of everything. The writing style of Stephen Hawking is very simple and easy, he illustrates very complex ideas with daily life examples.

In the first lecture, Stephen Hawking gives an outline of the history of the history of the universe, he gave a review of past ideas about the universe. He started his lecture from Aristotle's ideas and end it at our present belief about the universe.

In the second and the fifth Chapter, Stephen Hawking talked about expanding, origin, and the fate of the universe. In these chapters, he deals with questions like will the universe eventually stop expanding and start contracting? Will it expand forever? In these chapters, he also describes how time had begun at Big Bang? Stephen Hawking applies Quantum mechanics, the law of gravitation, and Einstein's relativity to prove that the universe must have a beginning and the universe could not be statistics.

In the third and fourth lectures, Stephen Hawking talked about black holes. He described how black holes are formed? What is inside the black holes? Will people be able to come out of black holes? The author proves his ideas with physics laws.

In the sixth lecture, Stephen Hawking discusses the direction of time. He described that does time travel is possible? Can we predict the future?

In the seventh and last chapter, Stephen Hawking described the ideas about the theory of everything. Actually, the theory of everything is not still given by anyone. There are some theories of science that are not unified with each other like Quantum mechanics and general relativity. However, one would hope to find a complete, consistent, unified theory that would include all these partial theories as approximations. The quest for such a theory is known as " the unification of physics." Einstein spends much of his latter time to unified all the theories but he refused to believe in Quantum mechanics. When all the theories will be unified, we shall really understand the universe and our position in it.

The theory of everything is one of the must-read books for science and cosmology lovers. Stephen Hawking illustrates highly complex ideas in a very easy way. I highly recommend every bookworm to read this book.

4.5* beautiful cosmic stars. Why the universe exists? Knowing the answer would be the ultimate triumph of human reason…for then we would know the mind of God….