A Brief History of Time (urspr publ 1988; utgåvan 1990)

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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Beautifully written, in the sense that I, a mere layperson, could understood a whole book on theoretical physics with minimum eye-glaze or supervision.

I would have loved this book being taught in a non-specialized school course, because this is the kind of stuff that feels really powerful and enlightening to know and yet doesn't mire you non-layperson rigour. It probably increases my literacy in levels beyond loose concepts used in television/movies for plot justification.

I am being mean-spirited by taking off one star for the sole purpose of indicating that this book did not fill me with a great subjective joy; in other ways, given my limited education on the matter, it seemed flawless from my frame of reference. Some of the book's 'banter' felt forced or dated. I am thankful the book went out of its way not to go into an anti-god diatribe and be gently charitable on the matter, and I assume the choice to address the possibility of the universe being god's creation was a purposeful one and an aim of the book (but the need for the aim wasn't apparent to me, even if I respect how it was done.) ( )

El principio del libro son conceptos basicos y no me aporta mucho.
El final del libro tiene conceptos que en los 80s eran lo mas avanzado que se conocia pero que a dia de hoy estan bastante desactualizados. Por ejemplo, dedica unas cuantas paginas a como sera un universo en contraccion pero ahora mismo no parece que eso vaya a ocurrir nunca. Tampoco se conocia el Boson de Higgs, la teoria de cuerdas parecia que tenia un futuro brillante, etc. Hay un par de capitulos ahi que habria que re-escribir.

Asi que la parte mas interesante para mi es la parte intermedia del libro. No digo que el libro sea malo pero quiza no soy su audiencia ideal.
En general las explicaciones son muy comprensibles y como minimo te hace recapacitar sobre estos temas

Mi gran teoria ahora es que los elementos mas basicos de la materia estan hechos de "espacio" cuando el espacio por alguna razon se rompe, pasa de ser energia neutra a ser particular y anti-particulas. Y asi se crean las cosas y el hecho de que la materia se vuelva a unir esta creando mas espacio y esa es la razon por la que el universo se expande!
Ale, nueva teoria! ( )

(1) Wormholes (viii & 159ff)
(2) What constitutes a good theory? (10)
(3) Gamon's sense of humor (122)
(4) Light and information (125) ( )