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| The Universe in a Nutshell | 
 enlarge | Author: Stephen William Hawking
Publisher: Bantam Press
Category: Book
List Price: £20.00
Buy Used: £4.99
You Save: £15.01 (75%)
New (28) from £10.98
Avg. Customer Rating:  30 reviews
Sales Rank: 3923
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 222
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.1
Dimensions (in): 10.1 x 7.9 x 1
ISBN: 0593048156
Dewey Decimal Number: 600
EAN: 9780593048153
ASIN: 0593048156
Publication Date: November 5, 2001
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: despatched from a uk seller
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.co.uk Review
The Universe in a Nutshell attempts to address the relative difficulty of Hawking's first foray into popular science, A Brief History of Time. While this sold in its millions, few readers got past the first few chapters. Helpfully, this new work is full of beautifully prepared colour illustrations and decorations, and has a "tree-like" structure, so that readers can skip from chapter to chapter without losing the thread. In 200 highly illustrated pages, Hawking is pushing the frontiers of popular physics beyond relativity and quantum theory, past superstring theory and imaginary time, into a dizzying new world of M-theory and branes. It's a colossal venture--one Hawking is uniquely qualified to undertake--but it is crammed into far too small a space. When you consider the other rather good tomes being written on the nature of consciousness these days, the decision to limit The Universe in a Nutshell to the dictates of publishing rather than to the natural parameters of the material is an unfortunate one. Worse, Hawking tries to paper over the complexity of his field. He rushes over the very concepts he should be helping us understand, only to belabour simple ideas, often by means of flip Star Trek metaphors. Also unfortunately, the illustrations--by turns trivial and opaque--mirror the faults of the text. The author's name alone will guarantee sales, but the book we long for--the long, ruminative, poetic celebration of Hawking's world--seems as far away as ever. --Simon Ings
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| Customer Reviews: Read 25 more reviews...
Very good book, but a bit hard to understand July 24, 2008
Before I read this book, I have finished A Briefer History of Time also by Stephen Hawking. Therefore, I have had a general idea of time and relativity already.
I found University in a Nutshell is much harder to understand comparing with the A Briefer History of Time. The knowledge introduced in the book is much deeper and I counldn't understand much of it. I have got a master degree in microelectronics, if I got problem to understand I think many other people will have the same problem.
Hawking is trying to introduce the knowledge using non-mathematical ways. It is well illustrated, however, I think it is a bit over illustrated. I found many of the illustrations are redundant such as Einstein's photos and some other diagram isn't really helpful for readers to understand the knowledge which is written by word.
Generally speaking, it is still a very good book. It covers quite a lot of knoledge points such as black hole and etc. And it is quite a fun to read.
Mostly understandable :) June 14, 2006
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
I am not much of a science / physics person (as in I don't really understand these matters but do find them fascinating) but I am very interested in astronomy, so I am always happy to read something about the universe in language which does not employ too much maths or excessive equations, as I simply get lost otherwise. I found Mr Hawking's explanations very accessible, apart from the discussion about time and the whole argument as to whether it has always been there, and sadly even the beautiful illustrations didn't help...but I'd put that down as my own fault rather than the author's! All in all, very well-written book, most concepts will be understood by ordinary people without prior knowledge of maths/physics, I am grateful to Mr Hawking for making this difficult subject seem much less daunting!
 Only for people with science knowledge June 9, 2005
3 out of 6 found this review helpful
A lovely book, lavishly illustrated and covering a huge swathe of scientific ground. The only problem is that despite being written for non-scientists, it doesn't really explain very much and the lavish illustrations sometimes don't really describe what's going on either. If you have read similar popular science books then you'll find this an interesting recap of a large field, but if you haven't you'll probably just end up feeling lost and confused.
 Universe in a Nutshell review January 13, 2005
5 out of 8 found this review helpful
I think this book has a broad appeal for all readers that have an interest in science. When I first bought the book I was worried thet it would be too complicated because my area of expertise is law not science, but it is explained in an interesting and simple way with illustrations and minimal use of maths! Not only will you get an idea of the science behind this book but it will also leave you with philisophical thoughts about the universe and the mysteries that are incomprehensable and yet to be solved.
Excellent but incomplete picture of the universe November 25, 2004
2 out of 7 found this review helpful
This book is a must read for everyone who loves science. One has to feel some discomfort from the incompleteness of the big bang universe and its inefficiency to explain the growing number of observations. It is quite uncertain what existed before the big bang. That is why new theories like Eugene Savov's Theory of Interaction that cast light on the most recent mysteries from the near and distant space should be considered.
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