In his phenomenal best seller A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking literally transformed the way we think about physics, the universe, reality itself. Widely regarded as the most brilliant theoretical physicist since Einstein, he has opened our minds to today's most important scientific ideas about the cosmos. Now Stephen Hawking returns to shed new light on the darkest region of space and time...and to reveal an extraordinary array of possibilities for our understanding of the universe.
These essays range from the autobiographical to the purely scientific. Building on his earlier work, Stephen Hawking discusses imaginary time, how black holes can give birth to baby universes, and scientists' efforts to find a complete, unified theory that would predict everything in the universe, a concept he believes will come to seem as natural to the next generation as our current idea that the world is round.
Unfolding the great mysteries of the universe as a backdrop, Stephen Hawking also reflects on free will, the value of life, and his perceptions of death. He looks at how scientific theory converges with - and diverges from - science fiction, as well as how scientific fact interfaces with our own lives.