Stephen Hawking, Leonard Mlodinow: The Grand Design

In December of 2010, the Lincoln Journal Star wrote this about the book and authors: "Scientists," in the words of "The Grand Design" authors Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow, "have become the bearers of the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge." This book is their attempt to give some answers in this quest for knowledge based on recent discoveries and theory. What they are seeking are the laws that govern the universe. Ultimately this knowledge would lead to a unified "theory of everything" that physicists, including Einstein, have sought for years. In the authors' view, this theory of everything is best described by M-theory, which is a model of string theory, basically that all particles are connected by vibrating strings. Read the rest of that review here.

God, science and knowledge: Knowing it all from The Economist: Full print edition

A counterblast to Stephen Hawking: The End of Discovery: Are We Approaching the Boundaries of the Knowable? By Russell Stannard. OUP; 228 pages; $24.95 and GBP14.99. Buy from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk: REPORTS of the death of science have been greatly exaggerated—at least, that has proved to be the case so far. A British physicist, Lord Kelvin, is supposed to have said in 1900, “there is nothing new to be discovered in physics now, all that remains is more and more precise measurement.” But then along came general relativity and quantum mechanics that proved him wrong. A bestselling book titled “The End of Science” by John Horgan, an American science journalist, was published in 1996, but there are no signs of the stuff abating. In “The End of Discovery”, Russell Stannard once again predicts its demise...

Read the full Economist (print edition) story here. See also: The End of the Search: Discovery and Encounter With the Divine, Portrait of America: From the European Discovery of America to the End of Reconstruction, The Grand Design

The Grand Design of Physics from KERA's Think Podcast

[2010-09-28 12:00:00] Is the search for a unified theory a misguided effort? We'll talk this hour with physicist and science writer Leonard Mlodinow, co-author with Stephen Hawking of the new book "The Grand Design" (Bantam, 2010).

Download the podcast here. See also: The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives (Vintage), Euclid's Window : The Story of Geometry from Parallel Lines to Hyperspace, Feynman's Rainbow: A Search for Beauty in Physics and in Life

Stephen Hawking's "The Grand Design" from On Point with Tom Ashbrook Podcast

Physicist Stephen Hawking and Cal Tech colleague Leonard Mlodinow weigh in on science, the ultimate questions, and God. Their new book is "The Grand Design."

Download the podcast here. The National Post also had this to say, about the book (read that article, here):

Aztecs would tell of the Lady of the Skirt of Snakes, Phoenicians about the Zophashamin, and Jews and Christians about the one true God—Jehovah. But there is one unfortunate group—the children of atheistic materialists—that has no creation myth to call its own. When an inquisitive tyke asks who created the sun, the animals, and mankind, their materialist parents can only tell them to read a book by Carl Sagan or Richard Dawkins. But what sort of story are they likely to find? Should they be told, as famed astrophysicist Stephen Hawking claims in his recent book The Grand Design that “the universe… create[d] itself from nothing”?

See also: Illustrated Theory of Everything: The Origin and Fate of the Universe, The Theory of Everything: The Origin and Fate of the Universe, New Theories of Everything, The Theory of Almost Everything: The Standard Model, the Unsung Triumph of Modern Physics