A Brief History of Time From The Big Bang to Black Holes

Paperback, 212 pages

Published March 4, 2020 by Ishi Press.

ISBN:
978-4-87187-115-0
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4 stars (24 reviews)

Stephen Hawking'sA Brief History of Time has become an international publishing phenomenon. Translated into thirty languages, it has sold over ten million copies worldwide and lives on as a science book that continues to captivate and inspire new readers each year. When it was first published in 1988 the ideas discussed in it were at the cutting edge of what was then known about the universe. In the intervening twenty years there have been extraordinary advances in the technology of observing both the micro- and macro-cosmic world. Indeed, during that time cosmology and the theoretical sciences have entered a new golden age . Professor Hawking is one of the major scientists and thinkers to have contributed to this renaissance.

74 editions

Astrophysik für Laien

5 stars

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.

Review of 'A Brief History of Time' on 'Goodreads'

No rating

So... We are nothing more than a colony of ants living on a little rock, floating in an infinite and chaotic universe?

While reading this book I learned a lot of things I was ignoring. I am convinced that if more people had a good understanding of the topics in this book, our society would be different. I enjoyed reading A Brief History of Time, but I have to confess that I had a not so easy time going through some passages and concepts, even tough the book itself is very clear.

Beyond the cold landscape that Hawking depicts through the pages, there is a message about the nature of science. I appreciated how he states things explicitly, like when he states that there is no way of knowing for sure if a theory is correct. Hawking doesn't just spit facts about each topic, instead he reasons with the reader, …

Review of 'A Brief History of Time' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

Hmmm. 2.5⭐. Very patchy.
It's not clear to who the audience is meant to be for this book. It's clearly popular science rather than a real textbook, times the writing is so opaque the only a proper physics will be able to understand it. I am far from being hard of thinking - I'm a former university lecturer in computer science - and I also so have a strong interest in cosmology and particle physics, having read many books on both subjects over the years, I really struggled with about half of this book. Where I could keep up it was fascinating and thought-provoking, but sadly for too much of it Hawking assumes too much background knowledge on the part of his audience.

Review of 'A Brief History of Time' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

A good book. But I felt that the author sometimes explained concepts in a straightforward language without assuming any prerequisite from the reader, and sometimes he used some ideas which required some basic primer before use. The first half of the book was an easy read for me, but the latter half was relatively difficult to understand. One of the reasons that I can think of is that I have not studied the advancements in Physics after WWII during my school. So I did not have a basic understanding of the concepts.

It is one of those books, which will make you feel intelligent and dumb at the same time, still, definitely worth a read.