"If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants," wrote Isaac Newton in a letter to Robert Hooke in 1676. A pertinent comment and at the same time a deep realization: science, and essentially the whole of civilization, is an endless process of ideas. What seemed incomprehensible and "magical" yesterday appears clear and logical today; however - as this important book reveals to us - the historical journey of modern science has not been smooth at all.

Through this precious edition, the phenomenon physicist Stephen Hawking achieves a unique combination: he intricately weaves the historical tapestry of science and our evolving perception of the Universe, adorning it with the handwritten diamonds of thought rebels.

Professor Hawking takes the reader on a journey through the world of Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, and Einstein, through emotionally charged scenes that marked each one's life and science itself. As if the climate of each "giant’s" era were not enough, the distinguished physicist heightens the intensity and mystery by presenting their authentic manuscripts.

Reading Newton's Principia, Kepler's Harmonies of the World, Einstein's Principle of Relativity, Galileo's Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences, and Copernicus's On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, the reader is impressed by the clarity and erudition of their creators, while simultaneously discovering through the fascinating biographical texts the extremely challenging conditions under which their ideas were formulated.

For what else but emotion can one feel while witnessing Galileo kneeling, reciting with trembling lips his handwritten renunciation of his ideas before the Inquisition, just before whispering "And yet, it moves..."?

Modern scientists, Professor Hawking adds, "have revealed the objective and faceless laws that govern the functioning of the Universe, yet they continue to seek a comprehensive description - in which man seems to play no role at all. Perhaps this failure is temporary - the ultimate unified theory will uniquely determine the state of the universe, the strength of gravity, the mass and charge of the electron. However, certain facts (such as that we are the third rock from the Sun and not the second or the fourth) seem random and arbitrary, rather than predictions of a divine equation. I feel that the complex and (structured with simple laws) wisely built Universe requires the invocation of the Anthropic Principle, which places us once again at the center of the Universe: a position we dared not claim after the Copernican era.