Bruce's review
A Briefer History of Time
by Stephen W. Hawking
Wonderful review - this version seems to cover more than the Brief History did. Must have a look. I found your descriptions of the illustrations a delight - worth checking out the book just for those alone.
Thanks very much! I just started Michael and Ellen Kaplan's (Michael's and Ellen's Kaplan?) book "Chances Are... Adventures in Probability," which coincidentally treats the gnostic conundrum immediately on page 2. (I suspect the reason for this coincidence is related to the fact the books were adjacent on the library shelf.)
As of page 8, it's tremendously funny.
Looking forward to reading the "Fermat's Enigma" you suggested and to finding additional works among your reviews.
What a great system!
This site is one of my favourite things in the world - sad, but true. The best of it can be, as you said, finding out what not to read.
Bruce's review
A Briefer History of Time by Stephen W. Hawking
Bruce's review
rating:
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recommended for: everyone who has not yet made it to a grad-school-level physics class
This will be a shorter-than-usual review for me, but it doesn't seem necessary to add much more to the many excellent reviews of this book. This is the Hawking-Mlodinow easy-reader (because his best-seller A Brief History of Time was bought to make people seem better informed, but not actually really read. The challenge here was to comprehensively and cogently present complex concepts like relativity, quantum theory, string theory, etc. without using *any* numbers whatsoever (not even powers of ten!) and yet without coming off as patronizing. After a few initial hiccups (the first chapter's historical survey of the evolution of human understanding was a touch treacly and almost lost me), the book completely and remarkably succeeds at this.
Two minor quibbles:
(1) The illustrations, while very pretty (and all in color!), add absolutely nothing to the text. Rather than seek to use pictures to flesh out the more difficult-to-grasp ideas (e.g., particles vs. waves, wh...more
Two minor quibbles:
(1) The illustrations, while very pretty (and all in color!), add absolutely nothing to the text. Rather than seek to use pictures to flesh out the more difficult-to-grasp ideas (e.g., particles vs. waves, wh...more
Wonderful review - this version seems to cover more than the Brief History did. Must have a look. I found your descriptions of the illustrations a delight - worth checking out the book just for those alone.
Thanks very much! I just started Michael and Ellen Kaplan's (Michael's and Ellen's Kaplan?) book "Chances Are... Adventures in Probability," which coincidentally treats the gnostic conundrum immediately on page 2. (I suspect the reason for this coincidence is related to the fact the books were adjacent on the library shelf.)
As of page 8, it's tremendously funny.
Looking forward to reading the "Fermat's Enigma" you suggested and to finding additional works among your reviews.
What a great system!
This site is one of my favourite things in the world - sad, but true. The best of it can be, as you said, finding out what not to read.
