<p>Who is the author of The Grand Design?</p>

<p>Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow.</p>

Science

The Grand Design Book Summary - The Grand Design Book explained in key points

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The Grand Design summary

Name: The Grand Design
Rating: 4.4 (290 reviews)
Author: Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow

Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow

How science unlocked the secrets of the universe

4.4 (290 ratings)

19 mins

Brief summary

The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow presents a compelling explanation of the universe's mysteries. It outlines the latest scientific discoveries and explains how the universe formed without the need for a creator.

Topics

Mathematics Space Physics Natural Sciences

Table of Contents

The Grand Design
Summary of 8 key ideas

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Key idea 1 of 8

What’s in it for me? Learn the story of life, the universe and everything.

When it comes to our knowledge of the physical world, humanity has made remarkable strides over the last few millennia. If you were to ask a bronze-age “scientist” how the universe began or how it runs, he’d probably answer that it was all the work of various gods.

Today, we know so much more. Not only does science have an excellent idea as to how the universe was formed, it has also offered us a pretty clear indication of how it might end. In between, science has made great leaps in understanding how the world around us works. Be it the interactions of the largest bodies imaginable, like stars or galaxies, or the movements of tiny subatomic particles, scientists are always learning more.

These blinks will guide you through a brief history of scientific development. They will help explain how we know what we know, and hint at what’s still left to discover.

In these blinks, you’ll also learn

why there is no such thing as free will;
why our “reality” might not be the only one; and
why we are incredibly lucky to be here.

The quest to explain our world took us from the mythological to the scientific.

One of the defining characteristics of human beings is our curiosity. As long as we’ve been around, we’ve been pondering the big questions: why are we here? Are we alone in the universe? Is there a creator?

While these questions are thousands of years old, the method of using scientific inquiry to get answers is relatively new.

Back in ancient times, we used gods to explain the world’s natural phenomena. We had sun gods, gods of rain and thunder, even earthquake and volcano gods.

So, when we were desperate for good weather, we went out of our way to please the appropriate gods. And when drought or natural disasters befell us, we believed it was due to a failure on our part to adequately please the gods.

It would take the ancient Greek philosophers like Aristotle, Archimedes and Thales to move us past this mythological thinking. These Greek thinkers were devoted to pondering life’s big questions and contemplating the universe, and they began to find ways of understanding the world apart from godly intervention.

While someone like Archimedes wouldn’t be considered a proper scientist today, he was one of the first to conduct experiments and carefully observe and measure the results. This is how he came up with revolutionary principles like the law of the lever, which explained how small forces can be used to lift heavy objects.

This line of thinking would continue to be refined, and in early modern times, it became known as the scientific method – a strict system for formulating a hypothesis and rigorously testing it through experiments, measurements and observation.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, scholars like Galileo, Johannes Kepler and René Descartes were early proponents of the scientific method. Isaac Newton used this system to formulate the laws of gravity and motion, which finally allowed us to understand the movements of planets and stars.

Eventually, scientists would use the scientific method to explain how all of the physical world functions.

This led us to scientific determinism, the belief that every occurrence in nature can be scientifically explained – even human decisions.

Scientists have long argued whether humans have free will, or whether we are subject to scientific determinism.

You might be thinking, “Wait a minute, if my decisions can be explained scientifically, doesn’t that go against the idea of free will?”

Indeed, while many people can accept the rules of scientific determinism as it applies to nature, it’s a trickier proposition with respect to human nature.

There is no “reality” independent from the observer.

What do you think a goldfish sees if it lives in a fishbowl in your living room?

This was actually a concern in the city of Monza, Italy. In 2004, the city council outlawed curved fishbowls since they decided that the curved glass would distort the fish’s vision, therefore forcing them to live in a cruelly distorted reality.

A good model of reality should be elegant and consistent, should fit reality and should predict the future.

While it’s important to remember that everything is relative, this doesn’t mean that any old theory or scientific model should be considered acceptable.

There are four criteria that every good model of reality should adhere to.

Quantum theory describes nature at a subatomic scale – and it provides us with a different conception of the world.

So far, we’ve been looking at what’s observable to the naked eye, and for the most part what we see around us is all normal and explainable. But if we could see what is going on around us at the subatomic level, where quantum theory rules, things wouldn’t seem so normal.

One of the most important tenets of quantum physics is the uncertainty principle, established in 1926 by the German physicist Werner Heisenberg.

Einstein revolutionized our understanding of time and space.

Albert Einstein was only 26 years old in 1905, the year he turned physics on its head.

With his Theory of Special Relativity, Einstein proved that the way we experience time is also relative.

Physicists still argue on a unified theory of everything, although M-Theory might be a great candidate.

Nowadays, we have a lot of theories that explain how different things like gravity and quantum particles work, but these separate theories aren’t always compatible. Quantum theory and general relativity, for instance, don’t exactly play well together.

This is something physicists have been struggling with for generations: a Grand Unified Theory (GUT) that will link together the four fundamental forces of nature – weak nuclear force, strong nuclear force, electromagnetism, and gravity.

The universe is expanding and we are lucky to be where we are within it.

Our existence in the universe has always been a touchy subject, as has the existence of the universe itself. For centuries, the subject of how the universe came to be was dealt with through two schools of thought: those who believed that it always existed and those who believed it was the work of God.

It was only relatively recently that modern science had the tools to explain how the universe began, and how it is expanding, while still adhering to the laws of nature.

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What is The Grand Design about?

The Grand Design (2010) tells the fascinating story of how humans came into being and how we began to use the scientific method to explain both our remarkable growth as a species and the world around us. From the foundational laws of Newton and Einstein to the mind-bending science of quantum physics, find out how far we’ve come and how close we are to answering life’s big questions.

The Grand Design Review

The Grand Design (2010) by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow tackles the fundamental question of the universe's existence and why it is the way it is. Here's why this book is worth reading:

It presents complex scientific concepts in a clear and accessible manner, making it suitable for readers of all backgrounds.
Through a combination of scientific theories, historical context, and thought-provoking questions, the book challenges conventional beliefs and expands our understanding of the universe.
With its engaging storytelling and awe-inspiring insights, it keeps readers captivated, ensuring that the exploration of the cosmos is anything but dull.

Best quote from The Grand Design

. . . philosophy is dead. Scientists have become the bearers of the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge.

—Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow

Who should read The Grand Design?

Armchair philosophers
Science geeks who are into astronomy and physics
Anyone who’s ever wondered about the mysteries of life

About the Author

Stephen Hawking (1942-2018) was one of the world’s most celebrated scientific thinkers, having been honored with numerous awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom. For 30 years he was a professor of mathematics at Cambridge University, where he worked on many of his most popular scientific theories. He was also the author of many influential books, including A Brief History of Time and The Universe in a Nutshell.

Leonard Mlodinow is a physicist at the California Institute of Technology and one of the most respected specialists in quantum theory. He is also the author of the best-selling books The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives and A Briefer History of Time.

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