A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking, the most brilliant scientist of his generation, covers all areas of 20th-century physics, from quantum to the universe itself, and from the Big Bang to the Big Crunch. It targets non-specialists in physics and inspires people like me to explore the wonders of our universe.

One of the most compelling themes in this book is the idea of God. Galileo, in the 16th century, spent his life convincing the church that the Earth revolves around the sun, a very controversial and dangerous thought at that time. Einstein, in his later life, became a Christian and rejected randomness (“God does not play dice,” later proved wrong by the uncertainty principle). Hawking himself believes that if God exists, which he is very skeptical about, He could choose the laws of the universe at, and only at, the start of the universe. Most physicists have tried to combine the concept of God with the fundamental rules that govern us. Thus, the question remains: Does God exist? And if He does, what is His relationship with the laws of physics?

The book also discusses the beginning and end of the universe. How did the universe start, and in what ways could it end? The beginning is referred to as the Big Bang: according to Einstein’s General Relativity, there was a singularity of infinite energy and density at the Big Bang, which strongly signals the incompleteness of the theory. Since then, the universe has always been expanding, but in time, it will begin to contract, all the way to the supposed singularity again. This is the end of the universe, referred to as the Big Crunch.

Several more topics are discussed in this book, including black holes, time travel, quantum theory, and relativity. The last chapter is the unification of physics, a belief that there should be one unified theory of physics that can describe how the world functions. The idea is not new, as people from the past hoped this would predict future events. However, even if there is unification, one could not predict the future because of the uncertainty principle. Furthermore, if there is unification, one must predict that we would try to predict the unification itself, which again must be itself proved. It seems rather paradoxical in general. But, if we do find a unified theory in the future, the era of human civilization conquering physics would come to an end.

This book is a door that opened me to the mysteries of physics; every time I put it down, I would look around and see the wonders of my world with a new understanding.