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Stephen Hawking: His Life and Work
Stephen Hawking has beenan iconic figure inphysics for the last half a century,making many groundbreaking discoveries on the nature of the universe. Yet while his mind roams to the farthest corners of reality, his body has become increasingly trapped bythe advanceof Lou Gehrig’s disease, whichhas bound himto awheelchair, without speech or movement except for a few facial
Hardcover, 320 pages
Published
January 17th 2012
by Palgrave Macmillan
(first published November 1st 2011)
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Kitty Ferguson takes this biography to the final frontier in a captivating history of one of the great visionary minds of our day. Not only does she reveal intimate details of the iconic physicist who has lived half a century past a death sentence from incurable muscle degeneration, but she explains in layman’s language the fascinating development of his theories on cosmology and his indefatigable pursuit of a complete understanding of why everything exists, the grand unification of quantum mech...more
I thought there was a really good balance between Hawking's personal life and the theories that he's come up with throughout it. Until reading this, I had very little knowledge of Hawking in general, but I feel like I have a better understanding of him now. The book doesn't just focus on him - it focuses on his wife, as well, and I thought it to be very honest overall. Hawking wasn't portrayed in an over-the-top manner, but very dignified and appropriately so.
Everything was explained in an easy-...more
Everything was explained in an easy-...more
It's apt that I'm writing this review on the train to Cambridge, Stephen Hawking's home turf. A good few years ago we were taking a young German on a tour of Cambridge. He had no interest in science, but when we saw Hawking trundling along King's Parade in his powered wheelchair our visitor instantly knew who he was. If you ask a person in the street to name the two most important physicists of the last 100 years they would probably name Einstein, then Hawking. Which is odd, because I wouldn't p...more
Stephen Hawking is fun to read about, he's an interesting fellow.
Though this book is brief on science, it does a good job at covering the broad range of his work.
Don't expect to get a deep understanding of the physics.
For that, read:
The Black Hole War
Black Holes and Time Warps
Black Holes and Baby Universes
The Grand Design
I have to rant about one thing:
Kitty Ferguson repeats a sickening myth that the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster was "deadly".
The TSUNAMI was deadly, killing tens of thousands!
The rea...more
Though this book is brief on science, it does a good job at covering the broad range of his work.
Don't expect to get a deep understanding of the physics.
For that, read:
The Black Hole War
Black Holes and Time Warps
Black Holes and Baby Universes
The Grand Design
I have to rant about one thing:
Kitty Ferguson repeats a sickening myth that the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster was "deadly".
The TSUNAMI was deadly, killing tens of thousands!
The rea...more
Wonderful balance of Stephen Hawking's life and works. Kitty Ferguson does a wonderful job depicting Mr.Hawking in a way that is easily understood by the average person. I was very happy to have won a copy of this book for free on Goodreads. This book gave me great insight into one of the greatest minds of our time.
very well written, with strong personal flavours and philosophical stance on what science is.
I won this book on a First Reads giveaway. I would rate it 3.5 stars. I hate to admit it, but I never heard of Stephen Hawking before. I started this book totally unaware of his importance to society. I was amazed of his diagnosis of ALS 50 years ago...the book is easy to read and interesting (despite the physical parts). I was also surprised at the number of books written on him.
Received as a GoodReads giveaway. I admit I'm more interested in the person than the science, so I skimmed through many of the physics passages, but they were readable for a layperson like myself.
If this book had been published before I took my high school physics course, and I had read it, I likely would have been more interested in the class and applied myself more despite the mathematics.
This was a free Goodreads first reads book.
This was a free Goodreads first reads book.
A lot of this is about physics, and I skimmed or skipped those parts. I'd read about Stephen Hawking before, but this had a lot that I didn't know. The author made the point that in spite of his disablility, Hawking can be called healthy. He has managed to live a very full life.
An accessible and fascinating biography of the worlds most famous living physicist. Combines charming and tragic anecdotes of his life with lucid and coherent explanations of his work, second perhaps only to his own descriptions.
Here's to Hawking's 70th birthday, and beyond.
Here's to Hawking's 70th birthday, and beyond.
This was an insightful, readable book addressing Hawking from both a personal and professional perspective. The explanation of his theories and work was especially readable and understandable. Recommended.
scanned and there is nothing I have not read before - and, yes, I have kept up with him and newest ideas
Apr 23, 2013
Helena Basto
marked it as to-read
Apr 18, 2013
Antoinette
marked it as to-read
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
biographies,
library-trip
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
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| Could things be different in the life of stephen hawking if he had not been a person with disability | 2 | 5 | Sep 25, 2012 07:12am |
Kitty Ferguson, a former professional musician with a life long interest in science, is an independent scholar and lecturer who lives in Cambridge, England, and South Carolina.
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