The Grand Design

The Grand Design is a popular-science book written by physicists Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow and published by Bantam Books in 2010. The book examines the history of scientific knowledge about the universe and explains eleven-dimensional M-theory. The authors of the book point out that a Unified Field Theory (a theory, based on an early model of the universe, proposed by Albert Einstein and other physicists) may not exist.

It argues that invoking God is not necessary to explain the origins of the universe, and that the Big Bang is a consequence of the laws of physics alone. In response to criticism, Hawking said: "One can't prove that God doesn't exist, but science makes God unnecessary." When pressed on his own religious views by the 2010 Channel 4 documentary Genius of Britain, he clarified that he did not believe in a personal God.

Published in the United States on September 7, 2010, the book became the number one bestseller on Amazon.com just a few days after publication. It was published in the United Kingdom on September 9, 2010, and became the number two bestseller on Amazon.co.uk on the same day. It topped the list of adult non-fiction books of The New York Times Non-fiction Best Seller list in September–October 2010.