Illustrated Brief History/Time

　　In the years since its publication in 1988, Stephen Hawking'sA Brief History of Time has established itself as a landmark volumein scientific　　writing. It has also become an international publishingphenomenon, translated into forty languages and selling over ninemillion copies.　　The book was on the cutting edge of what was then known about thenature of the universe, but since then there have beenextraordinary advances in the　　technology of observing both the micro- and the macrocosmicworld. These observations have confirmed many of ProfessorHawking's theoretical predictions　　in the first edition of his book, including the recentdiscoveries of the Cosmic Background Explorer satellite (COBE),which probed back in time to within 300,000 years of the universe'sbeginning and revealed the wrinkles in the fabric of space-timethat he had projected.　　Eager to bring to his original text the new knowledge revealed bythese many observations, as well as his most recent research, forthis revised and expanded edition Hawking has prepared a newintroduction to the book, revised and updated the original chaptersthroughout, and written an entirely new chapter on the fascinatingsubject of wormholes and time travel.　　In addition, to heighten understanding of complex concepts thatreaders may have found difficult to grasp despite the clarity andwit of Hawking's writing, this edition is magnificently enhancedthroughout with more than 240 full-color illustrations, includingsatellite images, photographs made possible by spectacular newtechnological advances such as the Hubble telescope, and computer-generated images of three- and four-dimensional realities. Detailedcaptions clarify these illustrations, enabling readers toexperience the vastness of intergalactic space, the nature of blackholes, and the microcosmic world of　　particle physics in which matter and antimatter collide.　　A classic work that now brings to the reader the latestunderstanding of cosmology, The Illustrated A Brief History of Timeis the story of the ongoing search for the tantalizing secrets atthe heart of time and space.