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This book was published for the first time in 1988, he has sold over 10 million copies. It is written by Stephen Hawking, a theoretical physicist and cosmologist UK. This is a popular science book, dealing, as its title suggests, the design of the universe, the Big Bang to Black Holes. It is structured in 10 chapters.

Chapter 1: our view of the universe - Hawking outlines briefly how the theories of Aristotle, Galileo, Newton, and Edwin Hubble shaped the representation that the human being is the universe. Chapter 2: space and time - This is briefly the relationship uniting space and time, theorized by Albert Einstein. Chapter 3: the expanding universe - The Doppler effect, Edwin Hubble observations and surveys with an ultrasensitive detector centimeter waves by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson used to establish and verify the theory of a expanding universe.

Chapter 4: the uncertainty principle - In 1900, Max Planck emits discrete emission hypothesis amounts of energy he called quanta. In 1926, Werner Heisenberg uncertainty principle formula. This is the birth of quantum mechanics. Chapter 5: elementary particles and forces of nature - The book enters the disk: the quarks, their tastes, their spins.

In the last 5 chapters, Stephen Hawking popularizes more fields on which he has worked directly: Chapter 6 - black holes, Chapter 7 - potholes so black it, Chapter 8 - origin and fate of the universe, Chapter 9 - the arrow of time, Chapter 10 - the unification of physics.

Clearly this book does not read like a novel. It requires brain time available from the player, sometimes reread one or more paragraphs 2 or 3 times and retain concepts from one chapter to another. It also requires a minimum level of scientific literacy to be able to understand the language of Stephen Hawking, a final year science right level or one year of scientific studies after the baccalaureate. For example, the reader should already have a clear idea of ​​just what a wave in the context of the physical sciences, in order to understand the concept of wave / particle duality.

It is indeed a popular work of impressive clarity. We must have in mind that it was written by one of the great scientists of the twentieth century manipulating and designing concepts of rare complexity. It is to its credit to have expressed a most common language possible theories such as those relating to antiparticles or complex time. On the advice of his publisher, he was limited to a single formula, already known to the public (E = mc2). Depending on the scientific background of the reader, it may find the book a little light or too demonstrative, or away too conceptual and difficult to access.

Subject to be motivated and focused, interested in these issues (the expansion of the universe, what is there beyond the universe?, He has time had a beginning?) the reader will benefit from a particular point of view (which does not claim universal, it is indeed that of Hawking) on ​​the evolution of the representation of the universe by the scientific world. As such, the first 3 chapters are notable for their brevity and their ability to show how Aristotle, Newton and Einstein each in turn upset the understanding that the individual may have of the world around him. Hawking shows an insightful popularizer, knowing take a concrete example of the revolution made by each successive theories.

Hawking proves equally adept to highlight the different approach mode is quantum physics, the paradox of the wave / particle duality (for beginners, make plans to try several times to absorb the consequences of the Experience of Young slits), and specificity of the attractive force in the context of physics.

The suite can look in some passages of science fiction disheveled, especially for singularities (Big Bang and black holes). Physical concepts are more difficult, more complex and more theoretical. Hawking trying not to lose anyone, illustrating his words, and inserting comments on the purpose of physics, the consequences of these theories on philosophy, and their compatibility with religion. On the one hand, the reader may be aware of what is covered by the concept of space-time from a scientific point of view, of what a black hole, etc. On the other, Hawking shows how these scientific theories involved a conception of reality, what will describe (and somehow predict) the reality of an existential conviction falls (nature obeys laws it can be established).

This book includes a central insert 16 pages of drawings (black and white) to which the text refers, 7 glossary pages, index pages 7. It is a photograph of Stephen Hawking knowledge in 1988. Since then, science has written two other books that came to develop, supplement or update some of these theories: The Universe in a Nutshell (2001) and A History of Time (2005).

Throughout these 10 chapters, Stephen Hawking embarks on a popular work of complex and complicated physical theories, avoiding jargon and mathematical language of science. The curious and motivated reader will benefit from a fast prospect of changing conceptions of the universe, a presentation of the major theories (gravitation, relativity, quantum, singularities), to apprehend the physical reality of phenomena such as space-time or black holes.

Stephen Hawking has written a trilogy for young readers dealing with the same theories and phenomena, with his daughter Lucy (1) George and the secrets of the universe, (2) Georges and the treasures of the cosmos and (3) and Georges the big Bang.