A Brief History of Time – Stephen Hawking *****

The one that started it all – at least the phenomenal interest in popular science books. Hawking’s media presence from Star Trek TNG to BT adverts does nothing to trivialize this remarkable book. It’s one of a very few books in this category that continues to fascinate despite the fact that much of its contents stretch the reader further than is usually expected in a book of this sort.

To be honest, this reviewer avoided the book for many years for two reasons.

The first, which really wasn’t justified, was that this was so much a book that ‘everyone is buying’ that it seemed the cool thing to do to avoid it altogether. If that was your excuse too, it has now had plenty of time to stop being trendy, so you’ve no excuse for not getting it.

The other reason it seemed worth avoiding was its reputation as a book that rivalled Joyce’s Ulysses as one that most people never managed to get through because, trendy though it was, it’s almost impenetrable. If this is your reason for avoiding the book – you (like me) were wrong. It simply isn’t true.

Hawking starts remarkably gently, and though some of the contents are baffling in the small scale, provided you accept the standard undergraduate approach of nodding wisely and continuing whether or not you understand the fine detail, you will find that it fills in nicely with only a few gaps left. The most baffling bit is probably the section on light cones, which he doesn’t explain very well, and this may well have turned people off before they got further. He goes on to give some really quite approachable summaries of quantum theory, particle physics and the physics of black holes. I just wish he wouldn’t use so many exclamation marks!

I think the difficult reputation itself reflects the way this book started a trend. The fact is, in modern popular science terms, while not an easy read, it’s quite acceptable – in fact just at the right level. If there’s one small doubt it’s the suspicion that the few autobiographical comments, interesting though they are, are thrown in at the instance of an editor saying ‘put something in about yourself, Stephen, that’ll keep them going.’

The fact remains that this book deserves its place on every popular science shelf, not as a trophy or an icon, but as a fascinating, enjoyable read.

Paperback:

Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you

Review by Brian Clegg

Comments

David Latchman - Interview

Professor David Latchman, CBE, is a leading UK academic and author of a number of science titles, currently holding the position of Vice-Chancellor of Birkbeck, University of London. As Vice-Chancellor, Professor Latchman is the chief academic and administrative officer, and has been responsible for the development of the university since his appointment in 2003. Professor Latchman serves as Chairman of the trustees of the Maurice Wohl Charitable Foundation, an organisation dedicated the empowerment of the Jewish community through education, employment, medical advancement, and welfare. He also serves as a trustee of the Maurice and Vivienne Wohl Philanthropic Foundation, as well as a number of other committees centred around education, and scientific and medical research in the UK and Israel. This interview is for National Book Lovers' Day (August 9th). Why should books be important to us? Books have always been a big part of my life, and for many reasons. My love for them sta

Hothouse Earth - Bill McGuire ****

There have been many books on global warming, but I can't think of any I've read that are so definitively clear about the impact that climate change is going to have on our lives. The only reason I've not given it five stars is because it's so relentless miserable - I absolute accept the reality of Bill McGuire's message, but you have to have a particularly perverted kind of 'I told you so' attitude to actually enjoy reading this. McGuire lays out how climate change is likely to continue and the impacts it will have on our lives in a stark way. Unlike many environmental writers, he is honest about the uncertainty, telling us 'Despite meticulous and comprehensive modelling, we just don't know how bad things will get, nor can we know.' But any climate change deniers seeing this as an escape clause entirely miss the point. The uncertainty is over how bad things will be, but not over whether or not things will be bad. As we are told, 'tipping poi

Philip Ball - Four Way Interview

Philip Ball is a freelance writer and broadcaster, and was an editor at Nature for more than twenty years. He writes regularly in the scientific and popular media and has written many books on the interactions of the sciences, the arts, and wider culture, including H 2 O: A Biography of Water, Bright Earth: The Invention of Colour , The Music Instinct , and Curiosity: How Science Became Interested in Everything. His book Critical Mass won the 2005 Aventis Prize for Science Books. Ball is also a presenter of Science Stories, the BBC Radio 4 series on the history of science. He trained as a chemist at the University of Oxford and as a physicist at the University of Bristol. He is also the author of The Modern Myths . He lives in London. His latest title is The Book of Minds . Why science? As the pandemic has shown, there has never been a time when an understanding of science is essential for making informed decisions. But Covid-19 has also revealed the process of science in action, with

Search This Blog