A Brief History of Time

Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time is undoubtedly one of the classic casual scientific texts one should read to be well aware of the world around them and how it came to be. The author, an English theoretical physicist and cosmologist, seamlessly places the reader in the shoes of a student while diving deep into the questions we have always wondered but have never had the craving to research on our own time. Beginning with the relative basics of discoveries in the past centuries, Stephen Hawking explains in great detail the logic and reasoning behind the evolution of the human understanding of the universe. After getting the base knowledge out of the way, the book quickly dives deeper and deeper into theoretical possibilities and the observations which back them up. Due to the vagueness of the topic, the author helps readers visualize and truly understand the concepts that are being discussed with similes and analogies which relate to the real, observable world and the everyday life of the audience. When talking about the steps that must be taken for a star to transition into a black hole, Stephen Hawking connects the complex series of reasoning to a simple image, helping the reader visualize the theory: “It is a bit like a balloon---there is a balance between the pressure of the air inside, which is trying to make the balloon expand, and the tension of the rubber, which is trying to make the balloon smaller” (85). As a reader, such a vivid comparison makes the discussion of “sufficient gravitational attraction” seem a whole lot simpler and manageable to wrap your head around. Moreover, the lighthearted remarks which are tossed in throughout the text keeps you entertained and encourages you to continue reading, maybe not for the theories Hawking talks about but rather for his clever jokes which connect the material which was just discussed. During his discussion of elementary particles (matter and antimatter), the author includes a lighthearted remark which more or less summarizes the material that was just discussed: “However, if you meet your antiself, don’t shake hands! You would both vanish in a great flash of light” (71). The passage before this comment became complicated and very confusing to follow, however, after reading that joke, I couldn’t help myself but to turn a few pages back and reread his theory – all of this to understand his clever remark. Thus far, it seems like the perfect scientific book to read – it’s light, clever, and even funny at times. Yet, some parts of the text became extremely complex and impossible to follow. It didn’t help that the author expected the audience to have prior knowledge of the historical events which connect with the theories being discussed: “In fact bursts of gamma rays from space have been detected by satellites originally constructed to look for violations of the Test Ban Treaty” (115). While knowing exactly what the treaty was about is not directly necessary for a comprehension of the ideas in the book, it would undoubtedly be more helpful if a quick snippet of historical information was included in the text. The complexity of the theory’s descriptions, on the other hand, have absolutely nothing to do with the book itself. Stephen Hawking included an abundance of analogies and explained the complicated concepts of wormholes in as simple of language as possible. The issue is not with the author and the writing style – the subject itself makes it challenging to follow the ideas on the paper. If the idea of having to reread the same paragraph multiple times upsets you – A Brief History of Time is definitely not the book for you. All in all this is an outstanding scientific text, a classic even. The depth of the material that is being discussed in a syntax which an average teenager can understand is unbelievable at times. This book will answer the questions (and raise just as many new ones) you always had about anything to do with universe topics which are never discussed with the general public So, should you read this book? Heck yes.

A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking is about modern physics for general readers. Its aim is not just listing some topics, but introducing modern physics by examining current scientific answers, although not complete, to fundamental questions like: Where did we come from? Why is the universe the way it is? Was there the beginning of time? Is there an ultimate theory that can explain everything? We don't have such a theory yet. I have read the first edition when I was a high school student around 1990, and this book is the revised version (revised in 1998). Compared to the first version, there are little changes. But there is one noticeable change in his point of view on the ultimate theory. According to him, recent findings on "dualities" seem to indicate that it would not be able to express an ultimate theory in a single fundamental formation. Instead, we may have to apply different theories to different situations, but in the areas which they overlap, they must coincide. The book has a lot of merits. Firstly, non-native English users including myself would feel comfortable and find it easy to read. He doesn't use difficult words and his writing style is clear. In the sense, he is better than other English scientific authors like R. Penrose, J. Gleick and I. Stewart. Secondly, the level of the book is well-chosen for general readers and the total page number is just less than 200 pages. If they read the book, at least, they would be able to learn more about how the universe began, how the stars have been formed, and how we have come here as the result of the evolution of the universe. More than that, the book contains interesting stories of some Nobel Prize winners in physics with their results related to the mentioned fundamental questions. This will help readers understand the 20th century's progress in physics. Thirdly, among the physicists who have contributed in searching an ultimate theory, the author himself is distinguished. He showed that a black hole radiates light, so we can say that a black hole is not completely black. Up to the time he presented this theory, everyone believed that a black hole can only absorb everything around it, but radiates nothing. To find the ultimate theory, we have to consolidate general relativity and quantum mechanics, but the two theories are inconsistent in many cases. But Hawking skillfully applied both of them to black holes, and obtained the result. The physicist, L. Smolin regards his finding as a starting point toward the ultimate theory. That we can read a book where Hawking himself explains about his theory for general readers is thrilling. As I mentioned above, this is my second reading of the book. When I first read the book as a high school student, it was impressive for him to explain that at the beginning of the universe, there was a singularity where the energy density is infinite, and so the law of physics including general relativity, cannot hold. But at the second reading, I found out that what Hawking really wanted to say was not that we cannot know the beginning of the universe, but that we need another theory that can explain the beginning by considering both general relativity and quantum mechanics. Actually, in the book, he introduces his "no boundary" theory which explains it without the singularity. But this theory has been neither verified nor disproved by experiments until now. Here is my advice for a reader. Don't think that you have to understand every word and sentence. Less than 200 pages, the book contains a lot of things and the author does his best in explaining them easily. For example, its explanation about the history from the beginning of the universe to the first living things on earth is outstanding. And about time travel, its arguments are ever clear and reasonable for me. But, in a few parts, the explanations are just sketchy, so if a reader is not already an expert, he could not fully understand them. When you meet such parts, just move forward. The most important thing is to learn some things and enjoy the reading.

As an amateur astronomer of 40 years and a life member of the Mars Society I have read a few books on space/time. Stephan Hawkins is one of the most brilliant physicists since Einstein and chairs the professorship that Issac Newton used to chair. Hawkins is a master at putting together aspects of large scale gravitation theory and small scale quantum mechanics. Hawkins tells us Einstein spent most of his later life trying to find a universal law that would describe the total nature of the universe and failed. We are still trying to put together a complete universal total law. The first 1/3 of the book I basically already knew from previous readings. Hawkins does a good description for the average layman. Most of the later 2/3 of the book gets deeper and more complex when Hawkins starts talking about imaginary time etc. I tried reading the later parts in the company cafeteria. No good. The average layman reader will have to concentrate to absorb all that Hawkins describes and the various theories such as string theory. I gave up reading until I could read in a quite room. The later parts of the book were difficult to fully absorb and NOT an easy read. I had to put the book down in the later parts and come back to it. I started to get a headache concentrating to absorb as much as I could. Very interesting chapters on worm holes, black holes, and time travel and the impossibility of a spaceship going faster than light speed. The end of the book is great with short bibliographies on the big 3 scientists Albert Einstein, Galileo Galilei, and Issac Newton. Learned a few new tidbits. I have the utmost respect for Stephan Hawkins who continued with his research into space/time and black holes even though he has a massive MSD disability. A truely brilliant and courageous man. I would of given A Brief history of Time 5 stars but Hawkins did not go into observing the universe with more than our 5 senses and expanded consciousness. What would someone be able to perceive if we had more than 5 senses? What more could we understand if our consciousness was expanded a thousand times and we could use our brains almost 100 percent? Improve man's mind and you increase knowledge learned a thousand fold? Would of liked evidence of experiments in mind altering drugs ( I'm not talking about LSD use) and experimentation to expand consciousness and intelligence to be able to observe the universe in different ways. Maybe the physics we know today would be perceived as different with an expanded mind? Maybe a way to have a stable wormhole that would allow space/time travel of a million light years in a few hours? I'm not one to say space/time travel arriving at distant star systems in what would appear much faster than light speed is impossible because INMO the human mind has not been developed to its ultimate potential. A Brief History of Time is a good book worth reading but much discussion should also be on expanding man's mind to observe the universe in ways not even imagined. Read it in a quite room, give yourself lots of time, and concentrate. You may have to go back a few times to absorb it all. INMO not light weight reading in the later chapters. 4 stars and recommended.

Stephen Hawking’s "A Brief History of Time" stands as a beacon of scientific literacy, bringing the wonders of the universe to readers who may have little to no background in science. This groundbreaking book captivates with its clear, accessible explanations of complex concepts such as black holes, the big bang, and relativity. Hawking masterfully simplifies these vast and intricate subjects without diluting their awe-inspiring qualities, making it a delightful read for the curious mind. What sets this book apart is its ability to transcend typical scientific discourse, presenting theories not just as scholarly facts but as dynamic, pulsating stories that invite wonder and exploration. The reader is taken on a journey through the cosmos, exploring the fundamental questions of existence and our place within it. This is enhanced by Hawking's thoughtful prose that, while deeply informative, remains engaging and surprisingly light. This edition is well-structured, with each chapter building on the previous, ensuring a coherent flow that aids understanding. The inclusion of diagrams and illustrations helps clarify topics that might otherwise seem daunting, and the quality of the book’s binding and presentation aligns with its excellent content. For anyone looking to dip their toes into the vast ocean of astrophysics and cosmology without feeling overwhelmed, "A Brief History of Time" is a perfect starting point. It serves as a wonderful gift for a budding scientist or any reader with a thirst for knowledge about the universe’s mysteries. "A Brief History of Time" is more than just a book; it is an invitation to think deeply about the universe and our spectacular place within it. Stephen Hawking’s legacy as a brilliant mind and communicator shines brightly in these pages, making this work a must-read that is sure to ignite a lasting passion for science.

I bought this for my son he wanted to know more about history of time and I told him I wanted to read it as soon as he got through with it talk about a very interesting book and had a good price I'm not a pale horse from Amazon you own something that's going on in the world today by that book it will open your eyes to what the government's up to

"A Brief History of Time" by renowned physicist Stephen Hawking is a testament to the power of human curiosity and our relentless pursuit to understand the universe in which we live. This book brings the mysteries of space and time from the realm of the abstract into the hands of the everyday reader. Hawking's genius lies not only in his profound understanding of cosmology but also in his ability to translate complex concepts into digestible prose. The book effortlessly walks you through theories of relativity, quantum mechanics, black holes, and the Big Bang Theory, among others. Each page unfolds with thrilling revelations about our universe, making it feel as if you're venturing into the farthest reaches of space right from your living room. That said, the complexity of the topics discussed necessitates a level of concentration and intellectual curiosity from the reader. Some concepts may need to be revisited multiple times for complete understanding. This makes the book a continuous exploration rather than a one-time read. Despite the challenges, the knowledge and perspective gained from "A Brief History of Time" make it a rewarding read. It invites us to reflect on our place in the cosmos and pushes us to contemplate the very nature of existence. Ratings: Readability: 7/10 Depth of Content: 9/10 Intellectual Stimulation: 10/10 Accessibility of Subject Matter: 8/10 Overall: 8.5/10 - A riveting journey through the cosmos that challenges, enlightens, and awakens the star-gazer in us all. Take a leap into the unknown with "A Brief History of Time".

A Brief History Of Time explores some of the basic questions of existence, such as: How did the universe come to be? What's going to happen to it? How does time work? The book covers the size and age of the universe, the beginning and end of it, black holes, various theories about time, and how the theory of general relativity fits in with the quest for a general theory of everything. Widely regarded as one of the greatest minds of our time, Hawking's attempt to communicate complex science to the general public is written in a clear, almost elementary style, at least initially. (As more difficult concepts are introduced, the sentences become thicker, and the paragraphs longer.) For example, when introducing the “uncertainty principle”, Hawking writes: “The more accurately you try to measure the position of the particle, the less accurately you can measure its speed, and vice versa... Heisenberg’s uncertainly principle is a fundamental, inescapable property of the world.” What I Liked Least About It By far the most infuriating thing about this book was Hawking’s deliberate and repeated use of a non-standard way to communicate numbers. For example: “The idea of inflation could also explain why there is so much matter in the universe. There are something like ten million million million million million million million million million million million million million million (1 with eighty zeroes after it) particles in the region of the universe we can observe. Where did they all come from?” Nobody writes (or understands) numbers this way. The most common way to communicate large numbers in science writing is with scientific notation, something that’s common enough that the average person at least knows what you mean. Hawking could have saved quite a bit of space in the above paragraph by simply writing “10^80” (sorry, this text field won't accept superscripts), which is how any other writer would have handled it. Did he expect that repeating “million” fourteen times would somehow impress someone? (Also, oddly enough, “ten” followed by fourteen instances of “million” would actually be one with eight-five zeroes after it, not eighty. So, it was not only a poor way to write the number, but inaccurate as well. It should have had “one hundred” with thirteen instances of “million”.) A second thing that began to bug me was the gratuitous use of the word “God”, in places where it didn’t seem to belong. Knowing as I do that Hawking admitted in 2014 that he doesn’t believe in God (“I’m an atheist”), and that he most likely didn’t believe in God in 1988 when he inserted these phrases about God, it seems disingenuous and misleading. As late as 2007, he was still saying “the laws [of science] may have been decreed by God”, though some who have known him since the 1970s say he has been an atheist the entire time. It’s not just a few mentions. The idea of God permeates this book. To be clear, I’m not complaining that he talks about God; nearly everyone I have ever known does that repeatedly. My complaint is that the talk of God seems wedged into the pages, even in places where it isn’t appropriate, despite the writer’s atheism. Here are two examples, the first using God in an appropriate manner, and the second not so much: “Newton was very worried by this lack of absolute position, or absolute space, as it was called, because it did not accord with his idea of an absolute God. In fact, he refused to accept lack of absolute space, even though it was implied by his laws.” “However, if we do discover a complete theory, it should in time be understandable in broad principle by everyone, not just a few scientists. Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists, and just ordinary people, be able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason — for then we would know the mind of God.” Those are the final three sentences of the entire book. Later, in 2014, Hawking weakly tried to defend this phrasing: “What I meant by ‘we would know the mind of God’ is we would know everything that God would know if there was a God, but there isn’t.” If that is what he meant, it is easy enough to say: “for then we would know what a god would know”. I can’t imagine anyone but a very small fringe of scientific-minded theists being pleased with his original wording. What I Liked Most About It Despite regular accusations from the anti-science crowd that “science is a religion” (example), I found no leaps of faith or baseless assertions in this book (or in any other science-related book I’ve read recently). Where something is unknown, the author said it’s unknown. If something is assumed, he said it is assumed, and explained why it’s assumed. Hawking even questions the very foundation of how science formulates theories. For example: “It turns out to be very difficult to devise a theory to describe the universe all in one go. Instead, we break the problem up into bits and invent a number of partial theories. Each of these partial theories describes and predicts a certain limited class of observations, neglecting the effects of other quantities, or representing them by simple sets of numbers. It may be that this approach is completely wrong. If everything in the universe depends on everything else in a fundamental way, it might be impossible to get close to a full solution by investigating parts of the problem in isolation.” This kind of language is exactly why I like science. It uses terms like “as far as we know”, “to the best of our knowledge”, “recent studies have shown”, “with a few exceptions, which I will mention below”, and so on. When contrasted with the firm language of religion (“absolute”, “always”, and “every”), it shows that science is a quest for knowledge rather than an assertion of it. Science tends to recognize what it doesn’t yet know; in fact, what isn’t known is the very reason for the existence of science. Unlike the last book I reviewed, many of the ideas presented in this one did not make sense intuitively to me. Each of us grows up with an idea of the universe based on how it was first explained to us in our earliest days. It does not feel correct that the universe expanded out of an infinitely small point, or that it will someday contract back to that point — which is the most common scientific model of the universe. So when Hawking got to the point of explaining that it is possible, mathematically, for the universe to be finite without a singularity, I felt something like relief. “It is possible for space-time to be finite in extent and yet to have no singularities that formed a boundary or edge. Space-time would be like the surface of the Earth, only with two more dimensions. The surface of the Earth is finite in extent, but it doesn’t have a boundary or edge... so there would be no need to specify the behavior at the boundary.” In fact, each time I was starting to feel lost, Hawking would add something that grounded me just a little. Additional Note One thing that surprised me in several places were the dates of the discoveries, when compared to the dates I went to school and what I was (or was not) taught. For example, Hawkings says that the idea of electrons orbiting nuclei like planets orbiting a sun was an idea from the “beginning” of the 20th Century, and that it was overturned not too long after. Yet I was taught the old orbiting theory in the 1980s. He also mentions that quarks were discovered in the 1960s, and much more work was done on them in the 1970s. My science books in high school in the 1980s didn’t mention them. The proton, neutron, and electron were said to be the smallest indivisible particles known. It was frustrating to read these dates and realize that I was taught material that was known at the time to be incorrect. I thought quarks were discovered in the 1990s, because that’s when I first heard about them. Hawking addresses this problem somewhat later in the book, when he talks about the increased pace of scientific discovery: “In Newton’s time it was possible for an educated person to have a grasp of the whole of human knowledge, at least in outline. But since then, the pace of the development of science has made this impossible. Because theories are always being changed to account for new observations, they are never properly digested or simplified so that ordinary people can understand them. You have to be a specialist, and even then you can only hope to have a proper grasp of a small proportion of the scientific theories. Further, the rate of progress is so rapid that what one learns at school or university is always a bit out of date.” Conclusion I would recommend this book to anyone interested in science in general, or especially cosmology. I will probably read it again in a few years, to see if I feel any differently about it then.

If you've been away from science for a while, or have failed to come to grips with the current foray of the physical (cf., biological) sciences, this is THE book to read. You'll be pleasantly, elegantly, coherently, and intelligibly guided through the breakthrough in chemical and physical science. And you'll also become more aware of this century's greatest scientific challenge: How to unify two contrary, maybe even contradictory, theories about how the world works -- quantum theory and relativity theory. The former works well on the microscopic level, while the later works well on the macroscopic level, but the two are at odds when "combined." How could this be? There's no real answer -- not yet, but not for lack of engaging effort. You'll encounter everything from quarks to quasars to black holes and dead stars (are they the same?) to relativity to the anthropic principle, the three paradigms of time -- from Copernicus to Penrose and from Newton to Einstein. Intensely condensed and easily digestible, "A Brief History of Time" is a remarkable achievement and a joy to read. It's a review of all "must-know" physics and chemistry that will update the literate person of today in very accessible, easy-to-read, yet dense writing. The remarkable thing about this tour d'force is that, after all the efforts from Sir Francis Bacon to today to expunge metaphysics from the scientific blackboard, metaphysics have reintered through the mathematics' back door. One has to ask one's self whether or not invisible strings are keeping with "scientific" explanations for things that go bump in the night? Is it really science to "posit" theories based wholly on unseen, mathematically-derivative possibility? Has science crossed its own threshold? However the reader decides a question like this, one is ably armed to discuss it head on after reading this fine book. I am by no means a "scientific" person, but this wonderful overview offers enough armamentaria to think about the physical sciences intelligently. For that, and for Hawking's incredible clarity, this book is worthy of it continued long-term success.