Summary of the Book

In this Homeric text on the art of mathematics, Stephen Hawking brings together some of the greatest works on mathematics from around the world. He introduces readers to the bricklayers of mathematics, people such as Euclid, Archimedes, Diophantus, René Descartes, Isaac Newton, Leonhard Euler and Pierre-Simon Laplace among others. Readers will learn to appreciate the millennia of work that has gone behind the entire body of mathematical sciences which we know of today. Inspired by the words of Leopold Kronecker, who once wrote that “God made the natural numbers; all else is the work of man”, this book is a must-read for anyone who loves mathematics and wishes to see how it has evolved through time.

About Stephen Hawking

Stephen Hawking is an English theoretical physicist, cosmologist and the Director of Research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology within the University of Cambridge. He is best recognized in the scientific community for his collaborative works with Roger Penrose on gravitational singularity theorems in the framework of general relativity, and the theoretical prediction that black holes emit radiation, often called Hawking radiation.

Best known for his A Brief History of Time, Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays, On The Shoulders of Giants and The Grand Design, Hawking has a motor neuron disease related to Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). He is almost completely paralysed and uses a speech generating device to communicate.