Book · 2010
The Grand Design
Hawking's most philosophically provocative book, with Leonard Mlodinow (2010): why, he argued, the laws of physics make a creator unnecessary.
Last updated 23 May 2026 · How we research
Book · 2010
The Grand Design
Stephen Hawking & Leonard Mlodinow
His fullest statement on whether the universe needs a creator.
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The Grand Design, written with Leonard Mlodinow in 2010, is Hawking at his most ambitious and most controversial. It tackles the largest question of all, why there is a universe at all, and arrives at an answer that made headlines around the world.
The central argument
The book builds towards a striking claim: that the universe did not require a creator to bring it into being. Because there is a law like gravity, Hawking and Mlodinow argue, the universe can and will create itself spontaneously out of nothing. On this view, the existence of the cosmos is not a mystery requiring a divine first cause but a consequence of the laws of physics themselves.
Along the way the book introduces "M-theory," a proposed framework uniting different versions of string theory, and the related idea of a vast "multiverse" of possible universes with different properties, of which ours is simply one that happens to permit life. It also sets out a philosophy the authors call "model-dependent realism," the view that we should judge our theories by how well they describe what we observe rather than asking whether they are "really" true in some deeper sense.
The controversy
The conclusion drew immediate and widespread debate, particularly the suggestion that physics had removed the need for God. Theologians, philosophers and some scientists pushed back, and the book opened with the deliberately provocative assertion that "philosophy is dead," which philosophers were not slow to contest. Whatever one makes of the arguments, the book succeeded in putting deep questions about the origin and meaning of the universe in front of a huge audience.
Who it's for
This is the Hawking book for readers interested in the philosophical edge of cosmology, where physics meets the questions of why anything exists. It is bolder and more speculative than his earlier work, and it is best read as a provocation to think rather than a settled verdict.
Written with Leonard Mlodinow, it makes the case for M-theory and the multiverse.
Its argument that the universe needs no creator is explained in did Stephen Hawking believe in God?