Review, Book: Hawking's History of Time
Review.Book: A Brief
History of Time
Nexus
Introduction
to Physics and Black Holes.
Bibliography
Hawking,
Stephen (1998). “A Brief History of Time”. New York: Bantam Books.
Abstract
Introduction
to Physics and Black Holes.
Review
The first
half of the book, up to the beginning of chapter 6, is a basic introduction to
physics that anybody with a decent education probably already knows.
From thereon,
things get more interesting, yet Hawking text is riddled with condescendence
against the reader and his fellows. At the same time, he uses many references
to other physicists as arguments for his points, without illuminating the
reader on the contents of the referred statements. Also, the spaghetti
astronaut example is boring and overused quite like the “millions millions
millions millions […]”.
However,
the biggest problem of the book is that the content has to be taken quite much
at face value. It is quite impossible to follow the argumentation of Hawking,
because it is essentially based on mathematical calculations that are never
demonstrated. And understanding the implications of the important discoveries
made by recent physicists cannot really be expected – seeing how people like Hawking
himself and his peers had to spend decades trying to comprehend them.
The real
reason Hawking wrote this book is best found in the conclusion. There, Hawking
crowns himself the spiritual successor of Galileo, Newton and Einstein. In my
opinion, this conceited self-praise would not be necessary and undermines the
quality of the whole book – if Hawking tries to make himself look as good as
possible, his argumentation is certainly fitted to that purpose. And since the
argumentation is difficult to grok and has to be trusted, this fact lowers the
value of the book.
Recommendation
Anybody in
knowledge of the names Newton and Einstein should skip to chapter 6. Those who
don’t are in dire need of additional education in physics, but I am almost
certain that there are better resources than Stephen Hawking available. But as
I do not have any specifics, Hawking introduction should also do the trick.
As for the
second part, it is an exercise in mind-bending, if one is so inclined and does
not expect the lecture to have any practical consequences. And if one can live
with Hawking drumming into oneself that Hawking himself is solely on the apex
of physics, which he might well be.
Quotes
“The idea
of radiation from black holes was the first example of a prediction that
depended in an essential way on both the great theories of this century,
general relativity and quantum mechanics. It aroused a lot of opposition
initially because it upset the existing viewpoint: “How can a black hole emit
anything?” When I first announced the results of my calculations at a
conference at the Rutherford-Appleton Laboratory near Oxford, I was greeted
with general incredulity. At the end of my talk the chairman of the session,
John G. Taylor from Kings College, London, claimed it was all nonsense. He even
wrote a paper to that effect. However, in the end most people, including John
Taylor, have come to the conclusion that black holes must radiate like hot bodies,
if our ideas about general relativity and quantum mechanics are correct. Thus,
even though we have not yet managed to find a primordial black hole, it would
have to be emitting a lot of gamma rays and X rays.”
“I had no
desire to share the fate of Galileo, with whom I feel a strong sense of
identity, partly because of the coincidence of having been born exactly 300
years after his death!”
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