Complicated Science for Dummies. (A Brief History of Time - Stephen Hawking)

Member Name: The Duke

Product:	A Brief History of Time - Stephen Hawking
Date:	13/09/01 (123 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Interesting reading

Disadvantages: Can be tough going

Science is great. I love science, me. I don’t know why this is, but I’ve always been fascinated with puzzles and things that are science based. I remember one day, in my final year in primary school, a friend and myself were handed an aerial photograph of Belfast, and asked to “suggest” what time of day the photograph was taken. A few weeks later, we were given a small toy tank (the type that fired those red missile thingies) and asked to show what difference barrel elevation had to do with range.

While the first problem isn’t necessarily a science-based thing, but rather a combination of local knowledge and logical thinking, these are the types of things that really fuel my imagination (part of the reason I now attend university on a Computer Science degree – all the problem solving of “science” without the tedious maths of physics or equations of chemistry).

I’d heard about A Brief History of Time ages ago from the friend of an ex-girlfriend of mine, and I really thought it was something that I should have a look at, given my interest in the subject. One day, a few years ago, when I was feeling flush, I bought it on a semi-impulse buy and thoroughly enjoyed it.

By now there can’t be too many people who are unaware of Professor Stephen Hawking. He’s appeared on notable television programmes such as “Star Trek: The Next Generation” and “The Simpsons” (a fantastic episode with some of the funniest Simpsons lines ever – especially the bit where Homer adopts a “robot” voice to try to get Prof. Hawking to pick up the bar tab). You know the guy – he’s widely regarding as one of the foremost minds of our time, and many people rank him alongside Einstein, Newton and other notable scientists. Despite suffering from ALS (or motor neuron disease), his mind is still as bright as ever, and with this book, he attempts to bring many of
the important scientific theories regarding the universe to the masses.

As part of his introduction and acknowledgements, Hawking states that he tries to keep equations out of his writing because someone had told him that each equation would reduce sales by half, and in the end he only includes Einstein’s “E=mc squared”.

The book is split up into eleven chapters including an introduction and a conclusion, and also has a few pages at the end with notes on Newtown, Galileo and Einstein. Each of the main chapters is around twenty pages in length, and with most chapters have a few diagrams, you can expect it not to go into too much detail.

The first proper chapter is basically a helpful introduction to Hawkings’ world and what he and his colleagues hope to find out with their studies. This chapter also contains some history of science, from the ancient Greeks through to the contemporary thinkers, and I found this to be quite interesting.

There are nine further chapters within this book, each dedicated to one area of science and the associated theories.

* Space and time.
Starting off easily, this chapter describes the concept of space, the concept of time and the concept of space-time. Can gravity have an effect on light? What does this mean if it does? These are the sorts of questions asked and answered in this chapter.

* The Expanding Universe.
The universe is expanding (one of the reasons the “big bang” theory was put forward) and this chapter explains how this theory has come about and explains the concepts of the Doppler effect, red shift and blue-shift.

* Uncertainty Principle
Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle states that you cannot observe something without affecting it in some way, thus altering the results of the experiment, or event. Hawking explains how this principle was formed.

* Elementary Particles and Elementary Forces of Nature

Quite obviously, explains about what makes up matter and deals with atoms and smaller particles. Also deals with Pauli’s Exclusion Principle (which is not an Italian Americans method for letting patrons into his nightclub).

* Black Holes / Black Holes Ain’t So Black
Ah! A scientific term that most people are due to at least have heard, even if only from the dodgy Disney film from ages ago. Both these chapters are dedicated to the phenomenon of black holes and what is currently known or theorized about them. It’s these two chapters I had most problems with. In my opinion the science contained within them were the most difficult to get my head round.

* Origin and Fate of the Universe
Big Bang? Big Crunch? What happened, and what is likely to happen? These are the topics discussed in this chapter, and after the two Black Hole chapters, get back to relatively plain language. Even explaining how the Pope and the Catholic Church had invited scientists to advise them on Cosmology after their mistake with Galileo had “given permission” for the scientific to study the effects of the Big Bang (but not the Big Bang itself because that was the moment of Creation), despite the fact that Hawking himself had just delivered a speech explaining how time was irrelevant!

* The Arrow of Time
Time is complicated. You and I both know this, however this chapter doesn’t help matters much! In fact, the total opposite – it possible makes Time more complicated by explaining the way scientists view time, but still thoroughly intriguing, if confusing in places.

* Grand Unification of Physics
There is a general consensus that there is one theory that will describe all aspects of the universe, but at this time, that theory is beyond us. What scientists hope to achieve is discover pieces of this theory, and gradually build up a complete picture to a so-called Grand Unified Theory.

*Conclusion

Prof. Hawking concludes this excellent study by asking some brief question for us to mull over regarding what he has already discussed in the previous chapters, as well as look forward to what may happen.

All in all, an excellent book for those of you with a passing interest in physics, especially physics on a universal scale dealing with topics such as light, time and gravity. One thing that did surprise me was the amount of references to God. For example, one of the questions asked in the book is “Did God have control over what happened in the universe after the Big Bang?”.

Overall, I recommend this book, but to be honest I can see it being too scientific for anyone who hasn’t got a science, particularly physics to at least A level standard. Hawking does an amazing job of simplifying the stuff that he talks about, but I think there’s a long way to go before this type of work is available for the layman.

Author: Prof. Stephen Hawking
Price: £7.99
Publisher: Bantam Books
ISBN: 0553175211

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