Review:
Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of
Time is one of the best selling popular science books ever. A Briefer
History of Time, co-written by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow,
attempts to do the same with a slight twist: first of all, it is more
up to date, published in 2005 as opposed to 1998; second, it attempts
to be easier read by being both shorter and by avoiding elaborations which the average reader may have difficulties
understanding.
The main goal of A Briefer History of
Time is to present to its reader a simple and easily digestible
review of modern physics, including subject matter such as
relativity, quantum mechanics and string theory. In order to get
there the book starts off with the basics. That is, Greek
philosophers’ physics, progressing through Newtonian physics as it takes the reader down the path to modern age. Coupled with diagrams and easy to understand
explanations that manage to avoid math altogether, A Briefer History
of Time certainly achieves its primary goal. It has to be noted that
it never deleves too deeply into its subject matter; you won’t know
quantum physics after reading Briefer History, but you will have an
idea what quantum physics is about and what its key ideas are.
Brief as the book is, I did notice how
my reading speed got severely reduced the deeper I got into the book:
while the first “trivial” chapters are easy to understand and
familiar from my high school days, subject matter such as quantum
physics always requires an extra thought or two.
The authors’ ability to put so much
into so little has to be commended. However, their insistence on
mentioning god on every second page annoyed me more than a bit. As
in, sure – we don’t know everything there is to know, but why do
we have to draw the god card whenever we encounter difficulties? Obviously, as Hawking & Co themselves mention, science is and always will be a work in progress; we cannot expect to have all the answers. The authors' insistence on going back to godly themes reminded me of Newton:
unable to explain why the solar system is flat, he attributed that to
god; today we know the phenomenon is entirely natural. Indeed, thus far no one ever came up with proof for the supernatural; and even if someone does, and I greatly doubt that, then the chances of this supernatural having anything to do with the gods our society currently favors is very, but very, close to zero.
Overall: A fine achievement in
popularizing science for the masses and an excellent introduction to
where modern physics currently is and where it aspires to be. 4 out of 5 stars.
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