A Briefer History of Time

First read, I grasped more than I thought I would, a part of this is down to my own journey in books of trying to get here, the other part is how this book explains things; when it says in numerals ten-to the powertwenty-four it doesn’t assume the reader knows and explains in brackets that this means one with twenty-four zeros (I know one-million has 6 so this number I couldn’t even imagine). And right throughout it’s not taken for granted that I will be able to follow what it says, frequently everyday relatable examples are used to demonstrate the point further. This helped as there is a lot to take in; like my understanding of time (with its explanation of absolute time), or seeing the progression of how ideas changed from being show more geocentric to quantum mechanics. So, there was a lot here I couldn't follow but I am going to read more books and then come back to this one to read again.

It feels really good to finally read this, I got this book 6 years ago, a year after getting [A Brief History of Time], the book I’ve been wanting to read. My rating is more a reflection of where I am with this book rather than this book itself. I always thought this would be a challenging read and it is, it’s not reading this that’s challenging, what’s challenging is to see the world, or rather the universe, in terms that this book proposes but are not familiar to me. show less

This is an excellent book about the nature of the universe, space-time, and the history of our understanding of the laws of nature. Hawking makes difficult concepts easy to understand. His explanation of the theories of Aristotle, Newton and Einstein, and the everything in between, are superb. My only issue is that he gets bogged down at the end of the book, writing about the search for a unified theory of everything. He mentions concepts without explaining well - such as the weak nuclear force and renormalization, while talking of superfluous details of the publishing of discarded theories like supergravity. I understand that concepts of string theory are still in flux and are difficult to grasp. However I feel the writing could have show more used some more focus and clarity. I feel that Michio Kaku succeeded in explaining string theory better in "Physics of The Impossible". show less

As its name suggests, this is a shorter, and less technical, version of the great scientist's most famous work, which I have read to mark his recent passing. It covers in fairly crisp form the main historical developments in our understanding of the history of the universe, and the nature of time and space, and sub-atomic physics. In places, it still got a bit too technical for a lay reader like me, but for the most part offered a fairly easily digestible summary of some mind-blowing theories and chains of reasoning. This is mind-expanding stuff, that puts our concerns on planet Earth into a unique perspective. The diagrams I thought were not very good, though.

Needless to say Hawking is brilliant; but he takes it to another level by not only carefully explaining the areas of relativity and quantum mechanics in a way we can understand; he adds valuable yet humorous illustrations. While its not "Dr Suess does Cosmology" its far and away more approachable than other books on the topic. Personally I love learning new things and areas like String theory have been the most difficult. That said, I feel I have a far better grasp on these two areas after having read this book.

Renowned astrophysicist Stephen Hawking provides a concise follow-up to his best-selling "A Brief History of Time" in this slim volume. He boils it down to the most essential concepts pertaining to scientific understanding of the universe, space and time from the ancient Greeks to the present. I must concede that I learned at least 90% of this material in high school physics class, still, Hawking presents it the material in a fresh, witty way and has included more recent theories.

Hawking gives a cogent summary of the essential points of Einstein's theory of relativity, as well as the quantum mechanics of Planck and others. The prose is highly readable to general audiences without being dumbed down- which is a formidable task within show more itself. Unlike his "Brief History of Time" which reads like a wonkish college course in astrophysics or cosmology, "A Briefer History of Time" is readily accessible to non-scientific readers. He also incorporates some more recent theories and discoveries, including developments in string theory and others.

I highly recommend this book to any general reader looking for a fascinating, concise crash course on the space-time continuum and the essential scientific underpinnings to how the universe functions and evolves. If you want the wonkish details and to delve deeper into the technical science, I also recommend the original "A Brief History of Time." show less

Dumbed-down (and updated) rewrite of the original (1988) _Brief History of Time_ bestseller. I don't think the original book, when compared with many other popular-science books, was anywhere near as impenetrable as it is commonly said to be. (The complainers ought to look at Penrose's _Road to Reality_ to see what *real* toughness is like.) This kind of bleating about incomprehensibility arises, I think, only when bestsellerdom and author celebrity are factors. If the new little book succeeds in teaching the masses a smidgen of fundamental physics and cosmology, I say bravo.

If you're thinking of reading A Brief History of Time, read this first. At least if you're a total civilian, which I am.

My son and I read this together. We did have to hit the Internet pretty hard a few times to get clarification on some critical points; but all in all, this is a well-written, accessible introduction to some pretty heady stuff.

I would recommend having the basics of atomic structure and the life cycles of stars under your belt before giving this a go. Also, it really helped my son and me to resign ourselves to not being able to visualize certain concepts. Wave-particle duality is just plain weird, and I think it helps to do the best you can and ultimately just go with it, rather than struggling to fit this contradictory show more idea into a conventional kind of "making sense."

And now: on to The Illustrated A Brief History of Time (expanded and updated edition)! show less