A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
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Book Reviews of A Brief History of Time
Book Review: Them as can do, can sometimes teach.
Summary: 5 Stars
A leading quantum chemist said that during a trip to Australia he had been told, "Everyone in Sydney has bought a copy of A Brief History of Time, and some claim to have read it." I borrowed this book from a colleague heading back to his home in Sydney, who didn't claim to have read it. It is an ambitious book: a cutting edge scientist explains the history of physics and the universe to ordinary folks. Hawking more or less pulls it off: while there were a few stretches that I can only pretend to have read, overall I found it understandable and often humorous. (I loved the 2-D dog with the bone in this stomach and the digestive tract that cuts him in two.) It took longer to read than books twice its size, which suggests that modern physics theories themselves can warp the fabric of space-time. Despite Hawking's conclusion that philosophers "have not been able to keep pace" with physics and have nothing left to do but play word games, some still have interesting things to say about the Big Questions. William Lane Craig, for example, is full of suggestions about how Hawking can improve his metaphysics, if not his physics. We're all so used to hearing strange things from physicists that when Hawking tells us we may be living in imaginary time and real time is imaginary it seems par for the course . . . But I know of at least one top physicist who finds it as far-fetched as it sounds to the naive layman. Hawking's is a more genial and attractive agnosticism (or deism) than that of his childhood hero, Bertrand Russell. (Who said, "There is no evidence of design about the universe.") It would be hard for a physicist to maintain that, anymore, thanks in part to Hawking's own discoveries. So Hawking tries to slip down the rabbit hole with his watch into the Wonderland of "imaginary time" at the end of the book. I have to think Somebody Up There has a sense of humor.
Francis Bacon, who did quite a bit to set this grand scientific enterprise in motion, was fond of quoting the Biblical passage, "It is the glory of God to conceal a thing, but it is the glory of the King to find a thing out." The history Hawking gives here is indeed glorious. But the reader should also consider Bacon's prayer that from "the increase of natural light" there arise no spiritual "darkness." Hawking's understanding of the universe, while useful and instructive, seems to be, in a sense, a matter of attention strongly focused in one direction.
author, Jesus and the Religions of Man
Book Review: God's Pulse
Summary: 5 Stars
I am impressed with Mr. Hawkin's skills at telling a complicated story. With apologies to him, my comments translate what I think is one possible path through "A Brief History of Time" into verse, but there is a lot more to this book. Ten billion years ago, give or take,
A point exploded, universe to make.
Pushed outward at a frightful pace,
Strewing hot particles in empty space.
Blossom cooled, velocity slowed,
Galaxies in eddy currents showed.
Stars formed from gas with spin,
Burned, and exploded yet again.
Time arrow pointing with the spread,
The past recorded, future unread,
Random uncertainty in control,
Stardust here, there a black hole.
Universe at five billion years old,
Spawned stars of a different mold.
Recycled some matter to a yellow star,
With masses orbiting near and far.
Cooling, condensed, gave planets' birth,
The third one out we call the earth.
A couple of billion more years to wait
`Ere molecule clusters would replicate.
If with others they best competed,
They lived, else were defeated.
So evolution was established fact,
Life with diversity got into the act.
Three billion years more for the human race
To rise to its feet, its destiny to face.
On history its mind ever feeding,
Eventually learned all the preceding.
To anticipate cosmological events
Asked questions of discovered hints
Of the beginning of all he could see,
And given some time, wouldn't be.
Always in his knowledge quest,
Assigned to God's Vault that yet to test.
This Vault holds facts only God knows,
Trickles to man as his capacity grows.
So looking ahead from big bang's pop,
Though expansion slows, can't see it stop,
For we'll be gone -- it's more than a hunch --
As time reverses with a contractive crunch
That gravitates all matter to infinite mass,
Breaking phase barrier, turns to gas
That violently explodes to another universe,
With unique physics, for better or worse.
Cosmos convulses in diastolic spasm,
On either side of a singularity chasm,
Cycling time both forward and back,
God's heart pumping right on track!
Explosion, expansion, crunching contraction,
The beat goes on with metered action.
Only hints from The Vault to why it oscillates,
Call it "God's Pulse" `til reason facilitates.
Book Review: Overview of Novel
Summary: 5 Stars
First, let me give you some background about myself before my overview of the novel. Ever since I can remember, I have questioned not only the world around me, but the world beyond. I am curious about events and objects that affect my life, but it is the abstract topics, the ones that are literally out of this world. that intrigue me the most.
An understanding of space has eluded man since the beginning of time. Although mankind has made small steps and giant leaps, especially in the last 50 years, much about space continues to elude us. It is the mystery of black holes and an expanding universe that fascinate me. From increasing global warming to the continued inhabitability of our planet, an understanding of space is more relevant than ever. However, for me, the most fascinating aspect of space study is its relationship to the concept of time.
Time has been commonly defined as a non-spatial continuum in which events occur in apparently irreversible succession from the past through the present to the future. However, near a black hole the rules of geometry and time are no longer applicable because inescapable forces pull at the speed of light and are thought to result in the stoppage of time.
Stephen Hawking, who currently resides in Cambridge, England, is currently the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics and author of the bestseller, A Brief History of Time. Stephen Hawking is considered the foremost expert on black holes. In this novel he claims to have solved the black hole information paradox with his "Hawking Radiation" postulate which states that matter which falls into black holes is not lost in a breach of quantum physics, but rather emitted in the form of quantum fluctuations in the event horizon. Stephen Hawking discusses his theories on black holes and the concept of time. While reading the novel, it is captivating to ponder the unknown future of space exploration regarding black holes. He examines questions such as if it is possible to reach a black hole. Would it be possible to stand upon the event horizon of a black hole and live forever because time stops? Could a black hole be useful to us? Does a black hole eventually shrink and disappear? It is because of my curiosity and interest in spatial wonders that I believe this is a very rewarding novel.
Book Review: Science at Its Best
Summary: 5 Stars
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.
Book Review: The Wonderful Original Edition Of Hawking's Book!
Summary: 5 Stars
For those of us curious enough to actually open the covers of this remarkable exposition of very sophisticated scientific concepts laid simpler and comprehensible in Professor Stephen Hawking's disarmingly straightforward style, this original version of the now updated text is indeed a veritable treasure trove of layman's explanations for some wondrous scientific phenomena. Hawking, who is still a Lecturer in Physics at Cambridge University despite an progressively debilitating neuro-muscular disease, has a rather unique capability to eschew anything other than the bare minimum of all the otherwise stupefying scientific mumbo-jumbo as he explains various aspects of the expanding universe as black holes, the nature of time, the so-called "big bang", and of course, gravity itself. Hawking addresses the fundamental nature of physics as he proceeds to sift through these fascinating and long enduring mysteries of the universe. As a result, then, his somewhat rhetorical questions are presented for the single purpose of elucidating some interesting, provocative, and fairly indisputable answers to the nearly timeless ponderings we all seem to harbor about this wider world we all inhabit. Still one's consciousness seems to struggle in vain to consider the sheer scale of such conceptual configurations, with concepts that appear to be so immense and so dislocated to anything within our common experience while absorbed in our ordinary day-to- day time-space continuum as to give any among us a reeling and recurring case of vertigo. Of course, such a realization merely serves to magnify the sheer scope of the author's accomplishment in conceptualizing and executing such an approachable and accessible text, one that so vividly describes the origins and nature of our universe. This is a marvelous book, and one I can heartily recommend. Enjoy!