Research was undertaken into the book itself, and its significant impact in both the scientific and publishing worlds.
A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes was first published in 1988, and was written specifically for nonspecialist readers with no prior knowledge of scientific theories. Split into 11 chapters, Hawking writes in non-technical terms about the structure, origin, development and eventual fate of the universe, which is the object of study of astronomy and modern physics. He talks about basic concepts like space and time, basic building blocks that make up the universe (such as quarks) and the fundamental forces that govern it (such as gravity). He writes about cosmological phenomena such as the Big Bang and black holes. He discusses two major theories, general relativity and quantum mechanics, that modern scientists use to describe the universe. Finally, he talks about the search for a unifying theory that describes everything in the universe in a coherent manner.
The book became a bestseller and sold more than 10 million copies in 20 years. It was also on the London Sunday Times bestseller list for more than five years and was translated into 35 languages by 2001.
Previous Cover Designs
Research was also undertaken into previous cover designs for the book:
