Alva Review-Courier -

"I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space." – Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2

This quote gave Stephen Hawking the title for his 2001 book "The Universe in a Nutshell." Chapers 1 and 2 are a discussion of general relativity and quantum theory far above my comprehension but Chapter 3 is Hawking's attempt to describe the universe in layman's terms.

As a retired earth science teacher, it wasn't difficult to explain the universe as never ending but it was difficult to put infinity into perspective as related to the celestial sphere with its inscribed constellat...