The Grand Design (book)

The Grand Design

First edition cover
Author	Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow
Country	United States
Language	English
Publisher	Bantam Books
Publication date	September 7, 2010
Media type	Print (Hardcover)
Pages	208
ISBN
Preceded by	God Created the Integers
Followed by	My Brief History

The Grand Design is a popular-science book written by physicists Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow and published by Bantam Books in 2010. The book examines the history of scientific knowledge about the universe and explains 11 dimension M-theory. The authors of the book point out that a Unified Field Theory (a theory, based on an early model of the universe, proposed by Albert Einstein and other physicists) may not exist.

It argues that invoking God is not necessary to explain the origins of the universe, and that the Big Bang is a consequence of the laws of physics alone. In response to criticism, Hawking has said; "One can't prove that God doesn't exist, but science makes God unnecessary." When pressed on his own religious views by the Channel 4 documentary Genius of Britain, he has clarified that he does not believe in a personal God.

Published in the United States on September 7, 2010, the book became the number one bestseller on Amazon.com just a few days after publication. It was published in the United Kingdom on September 9, 2010, and became the number two bestseller on Amazon.co.uk on the same day. It topped the list of adult non-fiction books of The New York Times Non-fiction Best Seller list in Sept-Oct 2010.

The book examines the history of scientific knowledge about the universe. It starts with the Ionian Greeks, who claimed that nature works by laws, and not by the will of the gods. It later presents the work of Nicolaus Copernicus, who advocated the concept that the Earth is not located in the center of the universe.