The Grand Design [Audiobook, Unabridged] [Audio CD]

In the last thirty years of his life Albert Einstein searched for a unified theory - a theory which could describe all the forces of nature in a single framework. But the time was not right for such a discovery in Einstein's day.

Neither was the time right when, in 1988, Professor Stephen Hawking wrote A Brief History of Time in which he took us on a journey through classical physics, Einstein's theory of relativity, quantum physics and string theory in order to explain the universe that we live in. He concluded, like Einstein, that science may soon arrive at the long sought after 'Theory of Everything'.

In this groundbreaking new work, Professor Hawking and renowned science writer Leonard Mlodinow have drawn on forty years of Hawking's own research and a recent series of extraordinary astronomical observations and theoretical breakthroughs to reveal an original and controversial theory. They convincingly argue that scientific obsession with formulating a single new model may be misplaced, and that by synthesising existing theories we may discover the key to finally understanding the universe's deepest mysteries.

Written with the clarity and lively style for which Hawking is famous, The Grand Design is an account of Hawking's quest to fuse these different strands of scientific theory. It examines the differences between past and future, explains the nature of reality and asks an all-important question: How far can we go in our search for understanding and knowledge?

When and how did the universe begin? Why are we here? Why is there something rather than nothing? What is the nature of reality? Why are the laws of nature so finely tuned as to allow for the existence of beings like ourselves? And, finally, is the apparent 'grand design' of our universe evidence for a benevolent creator who set things in motion? Or does science offer another explanation?

The most fundamental questions about the origins of the universe and of life itself, once the province of philosophy, now occupy the territory where scientists, philosophers and theologians meet - if only to disagree. In The Grand Design, the most recent scientific thinking about the mysteries of the universe is presented in language marked by both brilliance and simplicity.

The Grand Design explains the latest thoughts about model-dependent realism (the idea that there is no one version of reality), and about the multiverse concept of reality in which there are many universes. There are new ideas about the top-down theory of cosmology (the idea that there is no one history of the universe, but that every possible history exists). It concludes with a riveting assessment of m-theory, and discusses whether it is the unified theory Einstein spent a lifetime searching for.

This is the first major work in nearly a decade by one of the world's greatest thinkers. A succinct, startling and lavishly illustrated guide to discoveries that are altering our understanding and threatening some of our most cherished belief systems, The Grand Design is a book that will inform - and provoke - like no other.

STEPHEN HAWKING held the post of Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge, the chair held by Isaac Newton in 1663, for thirty years. Professor Hawking is now Director of Research for the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology at the University of Cambridge. He has over a dozen honorary degrees, and was awarded the Companion of Honour in 1989. He is a fellow of the Royal Society and a member of the US Natonal Academy of Science. His books include the bestselling A Brief History of Time, Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays, The Universe in a Nutshell and A Briefer History of Time. Stephen Hawking is regarded as one of the most brilliant theoretical physicists since Einstein. He lives in Cambridge.

Leonard Mlodinow is a physicist at Caltech University and the bestselling author of The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules our Lives, Euclid's Window: the Story of Geometry from Parallel Lines to Hyperspace, and Feynman's Rainbow:A Search for Beauty in Physics and in Life. He has also been a writer for Star Trek: the Next Generation. He lives in South Pasadena, California.

STEPHEN HAWKING is Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge and author of A Brief History of Time which was an international bestseller. His other books for the general reader include A Briefer History in Time, the essay collection Black Holes and Baby Universe and The Universe in a Nutshell.

Physicist LEONARD MLODINOW has taught at Cal Tech, written for Star Trek: The Next Generation, and is the author of Euclid's Window, Feynman's Rainbow and Some Time with Feynman. He is also

the co-author of A Briefer History in Time and the children's book series The Kids of Einstein Elementary.