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A Briefer History of Time By Stephen HawkingLeonard Mlodinow ( Bantam )
Release Date: 2008-05-13
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List Price: $18.00
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Product Description
From One of the Most Brilliant Minds of Our Time
Comes a Book that Clarifies His Most Important Ideas
Stephen Hawking’s worldwide bestseller, A Brief History of Time, remains one of the landmark volumes in scientific writing of our time. But for years readers have asked for a more accessible formulation of its key concepts—the nature of space and time, the role of God in creation, and the history and future of the universe.
Professor Hawking’s response is this new work that will guide nonscientists everywhere in the ongoing search for the tantalizing secrets at the heart of time and space.…
Although “briefer,” this book is much more than a mere explanation of Hawking’s earlier work. A Briefer History of Time both clarifies and expands on the great subjects of the original, and records the latest developments in the field—from string theory to the search for a unified theory of all the forces of physics. Thirty-seven full-color illustrations enhance the text and make A Briefer History of Time an exhilarating and must-have addition in its own right to the great literature of science and ideas.
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 Underwhelmed
While this book is shorter and more entertaining than its not-as-brief predecessor, I found it still unable to make the very esoteric subjects of space-time curvature, quantum mechanics and the behavior of sub-atomic particles understandable to me (MS Computer Science). Hawking clearly has a great sense of humor, and his effort to explain some of the results of his life's work to the general public is laudable, but this book failed to do that, at least for this reader.
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 Non-Fiction for Science Fiction Lovers
Excellent presentation of complex scientific theories. Stephen Hawking knows how to extract core principals and shape them into digestible morsels for his readers to consume and enjoy. The material is an update from his earlier Brief History of Time, and has the same cast of characters.
If only he wrote fiction!
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 Wonderful
Even briefer, this material requires a few readings to wrap the brain around. Very good examples though.
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Brief, informative, enjoyable ( avrwc )
As the almost forgotten Mr. Rumsfeld observed, there are known unknowns and then there are unknown unknowns. Some of us are curious enough to at least wonder about the former. Most of the rest of us lack the time or the dedication or, let's admit it, the intellectual capacity to take the hard journey to the frontiers between what we know or we believe we know today and what's on the other side - and the frontiers are moving farther and farther away from us. It takes a down-to-Earth genius like Stephen Hawking to give us a guided tour to the current limits of human knowledge and back and we can even get a hint of what may be lying across the border. It's a high altitude flight and very little experience is necessary for us to follow our guide but, when it's over, most of us are likely to agree that we gained a better understanding of the world in which we live than we had before we started reading. Unless we are string theorists ourselves, of course :)
I found the book to be relatively easy to read, interesting and informative. Even the little digressions into Newton's 'real' character (not a very nice person) were welcome. It is, indeed, a history, in the sense that it maps the human understanding of reality as it grew and evolved in time.
In the end... I still have no idea what TIME really is (does anyone?) but I enjoyed reading the book because, many time, I had the feeling that 'aha, I DO understand this now'.
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Great read!!!
I have not read the earlier version of this book yet, but this one was great. I was able to read it in two sittings. He uses pictures and describes everything in detail to make it easier to understand. That being said, this book is not for the faint of heart, but he does an excellent job over all.
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