Philosophy of Physics: Quantum Theory

An updated 50th anniversary edition of the best-selling classic on the extraordinary relationship between modern physics and Eastern philosophy.

There exist essentially two levels of investigation in theoretical physics. One is primarily descriptive, concentrating as it does on useful phenomenological approaches toward the most economical classifications of large classes of experimental data on particular phenomena. The other, whose thrust is explanatory, has as its aim the formulation of those underlying hypotheses and their mathematical representations that are capable of furnishing, via deductive analysis, predictions - constituting the particulars of universals (the asserted laws)- about the phenomena under consideration.

This book describes a paradigm change in modern physics from the philosophy and mathematical expression of the quantum theory to those of general relativity.

Stephen Hawking's closest collaborator offers the intellectual superstar's final thoughts on the universe.