A Briefer History Of Time - Stephen Hawking

...you were sucked in to a black hole?

Written by one of the most brain-worthy members of our species, Stephen Hawking, Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University, A Briefer History Of Time aims to help you to answer these questions. And, rather than the notions of boring equations and long drawn out explanations of quantum physics that I expected, this book was surprisingly entertaining, interesting and easy to understand. ...
...marketing science to the masses, A Briefer History of Time is an adaptation of Hawking's best-selling A Brief History of Time, which was hailed as a "landmark of scientific writing". A Briefer History of Time is intended to make Hawking's ideas on the nature of space and time even more accessible to those of us who aren't Lucasian Professors of any sort. Not only is A Briefer History of Time, a darn site Briefer than the original, it has ... more

Have you ever wondered why stars are different colours, if time travel will ever be possible, or what would happen if you were sucked in to a black hole?

Written by one of the most brain-worthy members of our species, Stephen Hawking, Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University, A Briefer History Of Time aims to help you to answer these questions. And, rather than the notions of boring equations and long drawn out explanations of quantum physics that I expected, this book was surprisingly entertaining, interesting and easy to understand.

Penned in collaboration with physicist Leonard Mlodinow, who has written for Star Trek: The Next Generation, and has obviously mastered the art of marketing science to the masses, A Briefer History of Time is an adaptation of Hawking's best-selling A Brief History of Time, which was hailed as a "landmark of scientific writing". A Briefer History of Time is intended to make Hawking's ideas on the nature of space and time even more accessible to those of us who aren't Lucasian Professors of any sort. Not only is A Briefer History of Time, a darn site Briefer than the original, it has specifically focussed on certain popular topics which we all occasionally find ourselves pondering. Hawking explains his takes on these ideas in an easy to follow, engaging manner with simple language.

THE STYLE

I would describe the appearance of the book as ultra-trendy text book. It is approachably chic, with an elegant print on smooth glossy paper. What really makes this book outstanding are the frequent illustrations which act as pictorial representations of ideas in the text. They are in bold, bright colours, some are diagrammatic others in a cartoon style, and are very eye appealing, giving the book a very friendly feel for a piece of science writing.

CONTENT AND LAYOUT

There are eleven main chapters, each tackling a different topic. These are followed by a conclusion and some short, interesting biographies of the key players whose theories pop up in the text to round the book off, which feature more on the personality and less on their science. We are introduced to Einstein, who turned down the presidency of Israel, Galileo Galilei, and his struggle with the church, and Newton, who was apparently a bit of a meany.

Chapter 1 "Thinking About The Universe" - As Hawking says, "We live in a strange and wonderful universe. Its age, size, violence and beauty require extraordinary imagination to appreciate." Here he takes a lighter view - the old lady who believed "the world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant turtle" - and a more factual view of the planets in our solar system, and tells us how far a light-year really is.

Chapter 2 "Our Evolving Picture Of The Universe" - Early astronomy is reviewed - is the Earth flat or round, what orbits what.

Chapter 3 "The Nature Of Scientific Theory" - How did the universe begin? What is the theory of relativity, and what exactly is quantum mechanics?

Chapter 4 "Newton's Universe" - What is gravity?

Chapter 5 "Relativity" - Space-time, determining the speed of light and E = mc2. Interesting facts include: "The weight of matter converted to energy in the bomb that destroyed the city of Hiroshima was less than an ounce."

Chapter 6 "Curved Space" - Does gravity cause planets to orbit on a curve, or are they travelling in a straight line in curved space-time? Hawking explains how time runs faster up a mountain than at sea level - yes, really!

Chapter 7 "The Expanding Universe" - "If a star were a grain of salt, you could fit all the stars visible to the naked eye on a teaspoon, but all the stars in the universe would fill a ball more than eight miles wide."

Chapter 8 "The Big Bang, Black Holes And The Evolution Of The Universe" - Hawking explains how it (maybe) all began and how it will (possibly) all end. Event Horizon isn't just a dodgy Hollywood flick!

Chapter 9 "Quantum Gravity" - Photons, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, the birth of quantum mechanics, randomness, and particles interfering with themselves.

Chapter 10 "Wormholes And Time Travel" - Travelling forward in time is apparently no problem at all, but to travel backwards we need to go faster than the speed of light - so far impossible, however wormholes may hold the key……

Chapter 11 "The Forces Of Nature And The Unification Of Physics" - "We may now be near the end of the search for the ultimate laws of nature." The ins and out of string theory.

At the back is a glossary explaining scientific terms, some very familiar e.g. black hole, mass, radioactivity, to some more advanced, e.g. string theory and neutrino. As all of these terms are well explained in the text, I did not find I had to refer to the glossary once during reading the book.

OPINION

For most people the idea of reading a book by Stephen Hawking will either be too intimidating or a complete turn off. But this book certainly isn't just for musty scientists with thick lensed specs who haven't left their labs since 1974. To be honest, I was a little trepidacious about reading this. I picked it up in an attempt to keep the physics side of my brain ticking over, and I didn't really expect to enjoy it or even to finish it. I expected long, drawn out explanations full of physics-babble, and I was really pleasantly surprised to find it was not like that at all. It is a book, which if you give it a go, is truly enthralling. Those A-ha! Moments come thick and fast, and while not exactly bed time reading, this is a great book to sit down with.

What makes this book so successful is that it has not set out to directly instruct. Its purpose is more to nourish an interest, and to tell us a little bit more about the universe in which we all live, and all must wonder about at some points in our lives. I would compare it to a David Attenborough documentary, which you can appreciate and understand without being a top ethologist - all you need is an interest in the world around you. Each chapter is only a few pages long so is no way daunting and provides just the right amount of information at a time to take in and digest. Hawking uses examples related to everyday life, such as trains, table tennis and lifts, to explain the scientific concepts.

What I like about Hawking is that he doesn't preach his science as the be all or end all. In fact he goes out of his way to state that all which is currently believed as correct is really just subjective speculation, and that no theory can ever be entirely proven. This gives the book the air of a kindly teacher trying to stimulate understanding rather than a brow beater aiming to make the reader agree unquestioningly with everything they tell you. Hawking leaves plenty of room for religion in his speculations, and shows that there can be a happy synthesis between beliefs and science.

I would recommend this generally for an adult readership, but the colourful pictures and some parts of the text could be useful tools for explaining scientific concepts to children.

A Briefer History Of Time is certainly a book I shall read again. It just goes to show - you should never judge a book by its cover.

FURTHER INFORMATION

R.R.P. £15-00, currently £9-90 at amazon.co.uk
162 pages
Hardback
Published, 17-October-2005
ISBN 0593054970

© 2006 V.L.Collyer

 

...less