Hardcover, 208 pages
English language
Published March 1, 1988 by Bantam Books.
A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes is a book on theoretical cosmology by English physicist Stephen Hawking. It was first published in 1988. Hawking wrote the book for readers who had no prior knowledge of physics and people who are interested in learning something new about interesting subjects. In A Brief History of Time, Hawking writes in non-technical terms about the structure, origin, development and eventual fate of the Universe, which is the object of study of astronomy and modern physics. He talks about basic concepts like space and time, basic building blocks that make up the Universe (such as quarks) and the fundamental forces that govern it (such as gravity). He writes about cosmological phenomena such as the Big Bang and black holes. He discusses two major theories, general relativity and quantum mechanics, that modern scientists use to describe the Universe. Finally, he …
A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes is a book on theoretical cosmology by English physicist Stephen Hawking. It was first published in 1988. Hawking wrote the book for readers who had no prior knowledge of physics and people who are interested in learning something new about interesting subjects. In A Brief History of Time, Hawking writes in non-technical terms about the structure, origin, development and eventual fate of the Universe, which is the object of study of astronomy and modern physics. He talks about basic concepts like space and time, basic building blocks that make up the Universe (such as quarks) and the fundamental forces that govern it (such as gravity). He writes about cosmological phenomena such as the Big Bang and black holes. He discusses two major theories, general relativity and quantum mechanics, that modern scientists use to describe the Universe. Finally, he talks about the search for a unifying theory that describes everything in the Universe in a coherent manner. The book became a bestseller and sold more than 25 million copies.
Sehr anschaulich, aber, auch wenn ich mich schon etliche Jahre damit beschäftige und verschiedene Autoren gelesen habe- noch immer brennt mir bei Quanten und Strings das Hirn durch. Ich bin schon froh, dass ich mir verbogene Zeit etc vorstellen kann. Dafür hatte ich auch schon ein paar Jahre gebraucht. :-D
Full of incredible ideas, it's no secret that Hawking was a great genius, but I felt like it tried to cater to too many audiences at once. Really enjoyed the appendix, actually
This book somehow manages to be simultaneous dry and accessible, and yet there's still a point at which I find quantum mechanics to be inscrutable. I also found myself wishing that there's an updated version - the book is now 35 years old, and I'm sure there's been new developments in the search for a Grand Unified Theory that I haven't heard about. But overall, I'd say this was an interesting read.
Ein sehr aufschlussreiches Buch, das so geschrieben ist, dass auch Laien wie ich etwas verstehen können (natürlich nicht alles, aber das muss auch nicht sein). Hawking beschreibt die Grundlagen von Newton über Einstein und Heisenberg bis hin zu seinen eigenen Forschungen und gibt einen Ausblick in die zukünftigen Forschungsrichtungen und Ziele (wie die Suche nach einer vereinheitlichten Theorie) in dem Bereich. Ich habe das Buch mit Gewinn gelesen, wenngleich es heute nicht mehr aktuell ist. Einige Theorien wurden ad acta gelegt, andere konnten in der Zwischenzeit belegt werden (Graviationswellen, Schwarze Löcher...). Zwei Anmerkungen habe ich: Im ganzen Buch kommt nur eine einzige (!) Wissenschaftlerin vor. Das wäre mir vielleicht früher gar nicht aufgefallen, aber heute achte ich auf so etwas. Herr Hawking haut manchmal ganz schön auf die Kacke (bezüglich sich selbst), aber er darf das auch. Er ist ja tatsächlich einer der wichtigsten Wissenschaftler des letzen Jahrhunderts gewesen.
Making science accessible to everyone! This really inspired me to love science, or maybe I already loved science.
I just finished listening to Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time. It was astonishing. It made me want to understand the universe in a way that no book has in the past. I actually feel like I have a grasp on what quantum physics is, when in the past I have always felt like it was a murky pool of unknowns. I can't recommend it enough, if there are any of you that didn't beat me to it. #physics #hawking #book #review #audiobook
A fascinating look into time and space. I'm not entirely sure how up-to-date this is, since the foreword speaks about "newer findings" that have been added, but then the foreword is from 1996.
A Brief History of Time is definitely a good way to start, if you're new to the topic of astrophysics. If you have read several more recent publications, you'll most likely have heard about all the information Hawking gives here.
I'm giving this 2-stars because it is a 2 star book. Calling it "okay" is a bit positive for how I felt about it. It took me 2-1/2 weeks to read this book, mostly because I could really only read about a chapter per day.
My overall feeling is that this is book people read to feel smug. This book came highly recommended. I know that many recommended it to me. It is a highly readable book. And I may have liked it if I'd read it in grad school when I think it was most often mentioned to me. It has sat on my TBR pile waiting to be read for a decade.
Unfortunately, the book is out-of-date, and I already knew much of the physics covered from my own interests and education. This meant I did not find it educational, entertaining, nor interesting. I'm not sure what level …
I'm giving this 2-stars because it is a 2 star book. Calling it "okay" is a bit positive for how I felt about it. It took me 2-1/2 weeks to read this book, mostly because I could really only read about a chapter per day.
My overall feeling is that this is book people read to feel smug. This book came highly recommended. I know that many recommended it to me. It is a highly readable book. And I may have liked it if I'd read it in grad school when I think it was most often mentioned to me. It has sat on my TBR pile waiting to be read for a decade.
Unfortunately, the book is out-of-date, and I already knew much of the physics covered from my own interests and education. This meant I did not find it educational, entertaining, nor interesting. I'm not sure what level of physics background is needed to enjoy this book. Hawking does a relatively decent job giving background and hand-waving physics basics. But sometimes he mentions physics particles and forces with no introduction at all, which I'd think would be confusing if you didn't have sufficient physics background to already know about them. Likewise, science changes. Some of the "final theories" given as fact have long since been updated. My copy was published in 1995. Maybe there's a more recent published copy that has updates. Unfortunately, Hawking prefaces updated theories within the text, so an added chapter without re-writes within the book would not be as good.
Hawking, hopefully inadvertently, carries on the institutional sexism of science and physics by citing all the "who discovered what" as recognized by some organization and did not do his own literature search because, surprise!, every person (but one) he cites is a man. There were instances of this where I know a woman made a discovery and he attributes it to a man because some prize organization did so.
Additionally, it is never a good sign when I start copy-editing when reading a book. I'm not sure what the 3 biographies at the end are supposed to be. They seemed a bit random. I didn't really care for the Introduction by Carl Sagan either.
Hawking hat sich bemüht, verständlich komplexe Theorien zu vermitteln. Ich bin aber anscheinend doch zu dumm, um diese Vereinfachung zu verstehen. Aber ich schiebe es lieber auf das Hörbuch Format, bei dem man nicht einfach zurückblättern und nachlesen konnte.
Un bon souvenir de jeunesse avec ce livre du génie Stephen Hawking.
Though there are parts I'm sure I did not completely understand, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. What surprised me was how much this very scientific book is also a book on philosophy and the nature of God. Those thoughts were some of his most engaging.
This book achieves what it sets out to do, to a large extent, giving a concise history of the universe and how time as a concept evolved. Set out for lay readers, it did at times go over my lay head, but for the most part this is fascinating and groundbreaking, and quite well written.
A fantastic read. It makes lots of complex ideas fairly clear using plain language. The revised edition has an extra chapter on string theory that is worth seeking out.
Finally got around to reading this classic masterpiece. I'm not giving it 5 stars because I don't really think I understood all of it. There's quite a few bits that honestly went way over my head but it is almost magical in the way it summarizes the universe and logically argues why we believe there was a beginning to the universe and why we might be wrong. It is lighthearted every once in a while and makes science seem gigantic and full of possibilities.
It is definitely a book worth coming back to in the future, even if just to see if I can understand it any better.
Rest in Peace, Mr Hawking, your legacy is enormous and most of us are just beginning to discover it.
The balance between informative and accessible wasn't always quite right for me, but I do feel I got a somewhat better grasp of 1) special relativity and 2) quantum mechanics.
