A philosophical discussion about the use of specific methodology in science, using the observations of Galileo as evidence.

Since I know I will not read this book again, I thought I should write something about it here, in December 2000.  What I remember most about this book was Hawking's description of Time, and his explanation of cause and effect.  He described the Big Bang, and theorized on the Big Crunch, if the Universe was to collapse in on itself again.  People have speculated that you would then see a broken glass reassemble itself and climb back onto a table.  But he discounts this by recalling that time can only move forwards, so that Cause must always precede Effect.  Even if the Big Crunch does occur, time will still move forwards.  I was awe-struck -it all made so much sense.  

So nearly ten years after this book was published, I was quite disheartened when Hawking changed his mind and publicly stated that time could move backwards.