A Brief History of Time (1988)

NA

H1.32.8

My copy says on the cover "the phenomenal international bestseller". It's certainly phenomenal. And fascinating. And mind blowing. And brilliant

This book is like a fine wine. Really smooth and delicious to read, extremely deep (and complex) and once you've finished you feel awesome and want more - but are also a little confused.

Like drinking a whole bottle of wine, it's not something I would recommend to everyone as it is quite demanding in places. Something to build up to, though with what I don't know.

This book was so engrossing I ended up having a 2 hour bath in cold water for most of it as I didn't want to stop reading to get out the bath. ( )

A Brief History of Time, no doubt, is the most science I've attempted "reading" in many years. I did listen to it on audiobook (some illustrations would have been helpful), and I won't pretend that I understood a lot of what he was talking about.

I do feel I know more about black holes, the big bang, the general theory of relativity, general history (i.e. names and dates) of important scientists and discoveries, quarks, quantum mechanics, and the uncertainty principle. But not much. Sadly, I'm pretty sure it was in one ear and out the other, in that I'll recognize the basic concepts, nod when someone breaches the subject, and add little more. I felt I had to slog through parts of it, while other parts kept my attention.

I felt he could have "dumbed it down" a bit more for the layperson. For science, I will probably stick with Science Mike (on podcasts) or Neil deGrasse Tyson. I feel like they are better communicators, and with less hubris. ( )

This is Stephen Hawking's mostly physical but also slight philosophical story about how we see the world today. It was written in the 1980s but it has stood the test of time well, which partly is depressing since it means that there has been no major breakthroughs since then. At least not that has been recognized.

The book is not easy to read without treating its reader like an idiot. I've heard from other sources that Hawking fought his publisher a lot because he wanted to make it more technical and the book went through countless revisions. In the end they both won, creating a classic.
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