‘hut much of philosophy and science has been driven by such nguiries. An increasing numberof adults ar wig to ask questions ‘ofthis sort, and occasionally they get some astonishing answers. ‘Equidistant from the atoms and the stars, we are expanding our ex- ‘ploratory horizons to embrace both the very small andthe very a In the spring of 1974, about two years before the Viking spacecraft landed on Mars, I was ata meeting in England sponsored by the Royal Society of London to explore the question of how to search for extraterrestrial life, During a coffee break I noticed that «much larger mecting was being held in an adjacent hall, which ‘ut of curiosity entered. I soon realized that I was witnessing an ancient rite, the investiture of new fellows into the Royal Society, ‘one ofthe most ancient scholarly organizations on the planet. In the fron row a young man in a wheelchair was, very slowly, signing his name in a book that bore on its eatest pages the signature of last he finished there was a siting ovation. legend even then. now the Lucaslan Profesor of Mathematics at iy, post once held by Newton and later by Cambridge Unive A.M. Dita, to celbraed explores of the very lage and the very snl. He ther wordy successor. This, Hawking’ fst book for he nonspeciais, holds rewards of many kinds fo he lay tudlence. As interesting asthe book's wide-ranging contents is the tlimpse it provides into the workings of its author's mind. In his book are lucid revelations on the frontiers of physics, astronomy, ‘cosmology, and courage. This also a book about God ,..or perhaps abou the absence ‘0f God, The word Go fil these pages. Hawking embarks on a quest to answer Kinscin's famous question about whether God had any choice in creating the universe. Hawking is attempting, at he cexpliily states, t0 understand the mind of God, And this makes all the more unexpected the conclusion ofthe effort, atleast s fa: ‘universe with no edge in space, no beginning or end in time, and nothing fora Creator to do, Carl Sagan Cornell University Ithaca, New York