Very informative and fun to read. Gets a little hard to understand at times because what Hawking is trying to explain is not trivial at all, but he does a great job at explaining it.

This book provides an excellent description of the history of physics and the current status of physics. Hawking is quite good at making extremely complicated subjects (such as quantum theory) comprehensible for the average person, although some topics could have been explained a bit better. It is also quite interesting to be reading it from Hawking's perspective because he adds a personal touch to the subject and often includes details about his own research in certain areas of physics. The book often talks about God / a creator and how it might tie in with the beginning of the universe and other aspects of physics, but Hawking never shows any bias towards or against religion; he only talks about it in a purely scientific manner (for example, he explains why some scientific theories about the beginning of the universe actually need a creator in order for them to make sense).

Overall it was a very interesting read and I highly recommend it.

This is a popular science classic that cannot be left outside any general astronomy/physics bookshelf.

Dr. Hawking explains, with the mastery of an able writer, the history and structure of the known universe, non-euclidean geometry, the laws of the small and of the large, the laws and fate of stars, black holes and singularities, and the very matter that builds us. It finishes with an argumentation about time, following the second law of thermodynamics, and mixing it with information theory (though not explicitly stated).

I personally love this book and, in my opinion, its a star (of the popular science books), as the material it is built from used to be.

This book absolutely recreates the wonder I felt looking at the stars as a child. Stephen Hawking has a knack like no other I have read in the science world of transporting the reader to a realm of humbling amazement and possibility. Pure genius bubbling over with dry humor that will never fail to raise a smile as your senses burn with curiosity for our elegant and beautiful universe. I've had this book for years but it is still a favorite that I can't wait to share with my own son.

Stephen Hawking, one of the greatest contemporary physicists explores in a very interesting and informative way the unresolved riddles about the universe and the structure of particles, energy, time, gravity, various forces in the universe, god and their relationship with one another. His approach is both scientific and philosophical raising questions about the meaning of human existence in the universe. Although quite detailed the questions raised and alternative explanations offered are appealing both to the amateur and the professional. Stephen Hawking approaches the fundamental issues from many aspects including Newtonian physics, Special and General Relativity of Einstein, Quantum physics, string theory etc. He compares the different approaches, explains how they arose historically and the quest for a unified theory of the universe. Of course he devotes a lot of time to the primary issue of the creation and possible end of the universe. His treatment of matter and antimatter are especially interesting. I had read the book many years ago, recently I listened to the audio CD. I recommend both as a rich source of knowledge about these topics from a leading scientist on these issues.

I also recommend The Fabric of the Cosmos by Brian Green which is also a very interesting exploration of the same issues.

I felt like there wasn't enough information in Hawking's explanations to really understand the concepts. So many times the fragments of information provided left me with a vague idea and a lot of questions.

For instance, Hawking writes "a matter particle, such as an electron or a quark, emits a force-carrying particle. The recoil from this emission changes the velocity of the matter particle. The force-carrying particle then collides with another matter particle and is absorbed. This collision changes the velocity of the second particle, just as if there had been a force between the two matter particles." I thought this was fascinating, and I can understand how that would cause a repulsive force in terms of classical Newtonian physics as long as the force-carrying particle has mass. But he goes on to say that some force-carrying particles "have no mass of their own". So I'm left with several questions:
1. How do force-carrying particles with no mass transmit a force? How can the ejection of a massless particle cause a recoil?
2. How do force-carrying particles generate attractive forces?
3. Does an electron in isolation, for instance, continually fire out force-carrying particles in all directions all the time to generate its electric field? Does it just have an infinite number of force particles to eject? If not, how does it "know" to emit force-carrying particles towards another electron when it comes near so as to repel it? It's no good to postulate that the other electrons' electric field compels the electron to eject a force-carrying particle because the exchange of particles is supposed to constitute the electric field.

At every turn, I'm left with these vague concepts and unanswered questions. I took three university physics courses and touched on relativity and briefly on quantum mechanics. In school, often one starts by learning equations and only later does a qualitative understanding really develop. I had hoped to better learn that second half of the puzzle by reading some qualitative descriptions with perhaps some analogies or illustrative anthropomorphisms about what an electron "wants" to do. In Hawking's defense, perhaps the difficulty in giving an intuitive description is inherent to the material which is counterintuitive by its nature.

Also, there were a lot of pronouncements of "X is true" without any explanation of how we know it's true. What experimental results attest to the truth of this proposition? Perhaps such explanations are beyond the scope of this book but they would have been interesting I think.

These difficulties aside, I did learn some interesting concepts and I still felt like the book was a worthwhile read.

Well, it's very nice for those who want to understand the universe better, but it's VERY hard at the first time you read it. I decided to read it all at once, not understanding a lot of it, and going back again to try to get the idea.

History will look back at this best selling book and here is what it should say: This book is very lucid to those who have not read it, but it is quite unintelligible to those who have. Buy this book, it doesn't cost that much, to see how a supposedly great scientist cannot put together a coherent thought on paper. It you want to read clear scientific writing, read Lev Landau and then compare to this tripe by Hawking.

A fascinating, non-technical explanation of the modern concepts of theoretical physics. Full of wonder and surprise...makes us look at the world and universe with a fresh pair of eyes. A modern classic.

One review stated " It Will Change the Way You Look at the Universe!" I have found this to be true and at a young age, it definitely sparked my interest in conceptual physics. I own this book in hardback and have found that the illustrations go a long way in explaining the content. A Brief History of Time explains a range of subjects in cosmology, including the Big Bang, black holes, light cones and superstring theory, to the nonspecialist reader.

A great book for both young and adult readers.

Reading this 10 years after the 10th edition was published, I find the science has advanced well beyond what is within the book, but at the same time the scope of the book remains relevant.

This should really be considered a history of philosophy of science, for indeed it is. There is only one equation in the entire book (E=MC squared), and there is no math done in here, so it should be accessible to really anyone.

I don't think the material gets dry so much as a little hard to follow at times. You can only explain so much of complex mathematical proofs in entirely conceptual terms. Prof. Hawking has sacrificed complexity for readibility, and overall he's done well.

You won't be a theoretical physicist after reading this book, but you may enjoy the field enough to pick up a slightly more in-depth tome.

Stephen W. Hawking is a theoretical physicist who has held the post at Cambridge University once held by Isaac Newton. Hawking writes of attending a conference on cosmology at the Vatican in 1981. At the end of the conference the pope cautioned that scientists should not examine the moment of the creation of the universe because that was the work of God. In his book Stephen Hawking has not heeded the pope's advice. One of his conclusions is that we now have a picture of developments "to about one second after the Big Bang" (p. 118). For Hawking, scientific inquiry has moved from "what" questions right on through to "how" and is at the point of answering "why." As soon as theorists succeed in incorporating the law of gravity into a properly developed and tested grand unification theory (GUT) we will then "know the mind of God" (p. 175).

Hawking writes carefully for the non-specialist. He has taken the trouble to provide a glossary with page references. He has avoided mathematical formulas and has worked hard to find analogies for the abstractions of twentieth-century physics. The universe looks the same from all directions, "rather like a balloon with a number of spots painted on it, being steadily blown up. As the balloon expands, the distance between any two spots increases, but there is no spot that can be said to be the center of the expansion" (p. 42).

Any careful reader can use Hawking's little book (198 pages including introduction, glossary, index, and three excursi on Einstein, Galileo, and Newton) to participate in ongoing discussions about a number of questions that are asked these days primarily by children and physicists. What is nature, and where did it come from? What is time? Is it possible to move backward in time? Is there a beginning or a boundary to the universe? Will the universe come to an end, and what kind of end will it be? What did God do in the beginning, and what role does God play now in the physical world?

The answers to such questions, Hawking believes, are to be found in the inquiries of theoretical physicists. For Hawking, the core of modern physics is quantum mechanics, the development of theories having to do with the movement and the components of energy, as distinguished from classical physics, the study of the properties of matter. Hawking states that quantum physics underlies nearly all of modern science and development, including nuclear power and micro technology and asserts that quantum physics will eventually not only explain the origin of every thing but also predict the future.

A number of ideas compressed into this small book warrant further examination. Hawking writes of a "survival advantage" (p. 12) scientific discovery has conveyed to humankind that can be canceled by further discoveries that "may destroy us all" (p. 12). Life in our sector of the galaxies developed because of disorder in matter that disrupted the generally smooth character of the universe. Hawking suggests that intelligent beings can exist only in an expanding universe. The idea here is that scientific laws are predictable in only one direction through time and that a collapsing universe would cause a reversal of the "arrows of time" (pp. 143 f.) and would thus invalidate human comprehensibility. Hawking speculates about a notion called "the anthropic principle" (p. 124), which appears to mean that the universe is as it is because, if it were not, we would not be around to observe it. But if the anthropic principle is the bottom line then scientific cosmology has become anthropology, and why waste any more time with telescopes or particle accelerators? Hawking suggests that the universe (time and space taken together) is "finite yet without boundary" (p. 136). This is the most arresting and, as yet unprovable of Stephen Hawking's proposals, but he is willing to wait for further observations that may move this idea to a higher degree of probability.

In the midst of all this theorizing Hawking conveys something of the playfulness of many who are engaged in the quantum physics quest. There is mention of a now-discarded theory known as LGM 1-4, LGM standing for "little green men." The explosion that is supposed to have kicked off our expanding universe is commonly known as the Big Bang. The smallest known particles are called quarks and come in flavors; the uniform nature of collapsing stars goes by the maxim "black holes have no hair." (p. 92)

Because theoretical physics has turned very precisely toward the whys of life, theology and ethics will have to pay closer attention. I will give two examples. When did time begin? Hawking offers the idea of a "singularity," a unique event in time at which the laws of science break down and predictability disappears. The Big Bang, therefore, is a singularity, and it may be said that time began with creation itself. From this it follows that time will come to an end when the universe ceases its expansion, collapses into itself, and perhaps sets off another Big Bang. The singularity idea has many implications for the theological dimensions of eschatology as well as for cosmology.

An example of the importance of quantum physics for ethics might be the "uncertainty principle" of Werner Heisenberg (1926), which Hawking refers to as "a fundamental, inescapable property of the world" (p. 55). Briefly, the uncertainty principle asserts that the position and velocity of particles cannot be precisely predicted. Rather, particles exist in a quantum state, which is a combination of position and velocity and which suggests a range of possible locations where particles are likely to be found. This means that we do not live in a deterministic universe where definite results can be expected. This also suggests there is a limit to our capacity to know what is going on.

If results in science are subject to randomness, ought not this principle of uncertainty be recognized when we speak of "good" and "bad" behavior? Isn't it less pretentious and more helpful to think in terms of quantum ethics, which would allow for a range of appropriate actions? I think this kind of approach is in harmony with Jesus' comments about ethical behavior. When asked about the greatest of God's commands he cited the Shemah (Deut. 6:4) and added that "you shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Mark 12:29-30). This admonition finds parallels in many traditions and leaves much room for intelligent, responsible reflection-action.

Theoretical physics awaits and accepts the judgment of the future, whose discoveries and experiments either prove, or dismiss earlier claims. The author cites many instances of this: even the supernovas of physics, Newton and Einstein, admitted earlier mistakes or had their ideas corrected by others. Most theological reflection, on the other hand, lacks any sort of empirical reference. In other words, theological speculations, disconnected as they are from a close reading of "secular" history, normally make predictions that do not have to agree with observation.

In the last ten years or so theoretical physics has turned cosmology into a subject for scientific discussion and discovery. Can theological speculation accept the challenge of quantum physics and adapt to the conceptual limits that are laid down? Are seminaries prepared to train pastors and teachers to pay attention to the quanta discussions? How might theocentric statements be tested and then sustained or discarded? These are a few of the questions that quantum physics has placed on the theological agenda.

This review was first published in 1989 and has been republished in a collection of reviews and articles, That's What I'm Talking About (Nativa 2008). THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT

Stephen W. Hawking is a theoretical physicist who has held the post at Cambridge University once held by Isaac Newton. Hawking writes of attending a conference on cosmology at the Vatican in 1981. At the end of the conference the pope cautioned that scientists should not examine the moment of the creation of the universe because that was the work of God. In his book Stephen Hawking has not heeded the pope's advice. One of his conclusions is that we now have a picture of developments "to about one second after the Big Bang" (p. 118). For Hawking, scientific inquiry has moved from "what" questions right on through to "how" and is at the point of answering "why." As soon as theorists succeed in incorporating the law of gravity into a properly developed and tested grand unification theory (GUT) we will then "know the mind of God" (p. 175).

Hawking writes carefully for the non-specialist. He has taken the trouble to provide a glossary with page references. He has avoided mathematical formulas and has worked hard to find analogies for the abstractions of twentieth-century physics. The universe looks the same from all directions, "rather like a balloon with a number of spots painted on it, being steadily blown up. As the balloon expands, the distance between any two spots increases, but there is no spot that can be said to be the center of the expansion" (p. 42).

Any careful reader can use Hawking's little book (198 pages including introduction, glossary, index, and three excursi on Einstein, Galileo, and Newton) to participate in ongoing discussions about a number of questions that are asked these days primarily by children and physicists. What is nature, and where did it come from? What is time? Is it possible to move backward in time? Is there a beginning or a boundary to the universe? Will the universe come to an end, and what kind of end will it be? What did God do in the beginning, and what role does God play now in the physical world?

The answers to such questions, Hawking believes, are to be found in the inquiries of theoretical physicists. For Hawking, the core of modern physics is quantum mechanics, the development of theories having to do with the movement and the components of energy, as distinguished from classical physics, the study of the properties of matter. Hawking states that quantum physics underlies nearly all of modern science and development, including nuclear power and micro technology and asserts that quantum physics will eventually not only explain the origin of every thing but also predict the future.

A number of ideas compressed into this small book warrant further examination. Hawking writes of a "survival advantage" (p. 12) scientific discovery has conveyed to humankind that can be canceled by further discoveries that "may destroy us all" (p. 12). Life in our sector of the galaxies developed because of disorder in matter that disrupted the generally smooth character of the universe. Hawking suggests that intelligent beings can exist only in an expanding universe. The idea here is that scientific laws are predictable in only one direction through time and that a collapsing universe would cause a reversal of the "arrows of time" (pp. 143 f.) and would thus invalidate human comprehensibility. Hawking speculates about a notion called "the anthropic principle" (p. 124), which appears to mean that the universe is as it is because, if it were not, we would not be around to observe it. But if the anthropic principle is the bottom line then scientific cosmology has become anthropology, and why waste any more time with telescopes or particle accelerators? Hawking suggests that the universe (time and space taken together) is "finite yet without boundary" (p. 136). This is the most arresting and, as yet unprovable of Stephen Hawking's proposals, but he is willing to wait for further observations that may move this idea to a higher degree of probability.

In the midst of all this theorizing Hawking conveys something of the playfulness of many who are engaged in the quantum physics quest. There is mention of a now-discarded theory known as LGM 1-4, LGM standing for "little green men." The explosion that is supposed to have kicked off our expanding universe is commonly known as the Big Bang. The smallest known particles are called quarks and come in flavors; the uniform nature of collapsing stars goes by the maxim "black holes have no hair." (p. 92)

Because theoretical physics has turned very precisely toward the whys of life, theology and ethics will have to pay closer attention. I will give two examples. When did time begin? Hawking offers the idea of a "singularity," a unique event in time at which the laws of science break down and predictability disappears. The Big Bang, therefore, is a singularity, and it may be said that time began with creation itself. From this it follows that time will come to an end when the universe ceases its expansion, collapses into itself, and perhaps sets off another Big Bang. The singularity idea has many implications for the theological dimensions of eschatology as well as for cosmology.

An example of the importance of quantum physics for ethics might be the "uncertainty principle" of Werner Heisenberg (1926), which Hawking refers to as "a fundamental, inescapable property of the world" (p. 55). Briefly, the uncertainty principle asserts that the position and velocity of particles cannot be precisely predicted. Rather, particles exist in a quantum state, which is a combination of position and velocity and which suggests a range of possible locations where particles are likely to be found. This means that we do not live in a deterministic universe where definite results can be expected. This also suggests there is a limit to our capacity to know what is going on.

If results in science are subject to randomness, ought not this principle of uncertainty be recognized when we speak of "good" and "bad" behavior? Isn't it less pretentious and more helpful to think in terms of quantum ethics, which would allow for a range of appropriate actions? I think this kind of approach is in harmony with Jesus' comments about ethical behavior. When asked about the greatest of God's commands he cited the Shemah (Deut. 6:4) and added that "you shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Mark 12:29-30). This admonition finds parallels in many traditions and leaves much room for intelligent, responsible reflection-action.

Theoretical physics awaits and accepts the judgment of the future, whose discoveries and experiments either prove, or dismiss earlier claims. The author cites many instances of this: even the supernovas of physics, Newton and Einstein, admitted earlier mistakes or had their ideas corrected by others. Most theological reflection, on the other hand, lacks any sort of empirical reference. In other words, theological speculations, disconnected as they are from a close reading of "secular" history, normally make predictions that do not have to agree with observation.

In the last ten years or so theoretical physics has turned cosmology into a subject for scientific discussion and discovery. Can theological speculation accept the challenge of quantum physics and adapt to the conceptual limits that are laid down? Are seminaries prepared to train pastors and teachers to pay attention to the quanta discussions? How might theocentric statements be tested and then sustained or discarded? These are a few of the questions that quantum physics has placed on the theological agenda.

This review has been published in a collection of reviews and articles, That's What I'm Talking About (Nativa 2008). THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT

Hawking does a commendable job presenting some very detailed and complicated topics while simultaneously exhibiting them in a manner permitting the layman to fully comprehend the material. He accomplished both the simplification of complicated content as well as the presentation of subject matters that might normally be tedious yet are found to be quite appealing as a result of his demeanor and writing style.

Hawking's use of analogies only makes the visualization of space and time all the more accessible to simpler minds such as myself. Frequently taking subjects that require intense imagination and focus and explaining them with everyday analogies perhaps speaks to Hawking's brilliance as much as his research. Never before have I been so easily able to comprehend the expansion of the universe until it was so eloquently equated with the spots on a balloon. This only represents a sampling of the useful correlations one will find in this work, as he scatters them throughout each chapter.

For those seeking to explore the mindset of the most prominent men of science and to discover the questions they are asking in their quest for answers, this book will not disappoint. If you have even a basic interest in astronomy or physics, this book should be an essential part of your library.

just a great book, explain in a fun and easy way. I just love it

Recommend it to all those who want to have a better understanding of science especially physics and astro-physics.

book that sold millions of copies and one wonders how many people read it and of those, how many actually understood it all. I have a scientific education (chemistry), but I frankly admit I did not get it all. It is difficult to explain what is in the book, but is in essence about where we came from and what we are heading to with regard to the universe, time, space and matter. The book is very well written, with a sense of humor and trying to explain the nearly inexplicable to the layman; I could follow large chunks of the text, but sometimes it is just too difficult to comprehend. This made me think: is Stephen Hawking's disadvantage (being locked up in his own body) also his disadvantage? He probably has more time than most people to turn into himself and contemplate on such extremely complex items as black holes, wormholes and the (in)finity of the universe. A book that leaves you in awe.

It is a wonder to me that how an intellect like Stephen Hawking can explain the complex subject in terms an ordinary person with basic knowledge of physics can understand. I bought this book after having seen his presentation of the subject on TV and am so pleased with it that I shall treasure it.

This is a great book,for those seeking answers,it is eaey to understand,and for those seeking to establish reality in their belief system,this is a great place to start.

This is a great book, giving a light overview of Physics and Hawking's ideas in general. A must for anyone with brain cells.

I agree with the reviewers who were disappointed in this book and don't understand its success. I am a well-educated person with a science background and I was able to grasp only about 80% of what he talked about.

The book wasn't well written. One of the most frustrating things he did -mainly in the first few chapters- was explain a theory and then, a few pages later, tell you that it had been disproved. Some things he explains in great detail and others he does not. The illustrations aren't very helpful. I also was a little sick of all his personal interjections - he thinks quite highly of himself. Obviously, the man is a world-renowned physicist, so you would think he wouldn't need to toot his own horn, but...

This is a fine book for people who love physics of those who are curious about the universe they are in. A great book by a great scientist.

This is a fine book for people who love physics of those who are curious about the universe they are in. A great book by a great scientist.

Many years after its initial release, this book is still a great pleasure to read. Written in a conversational tone, much of it is probably readily understandable to most readers. However, some parts of it, especially toward the end, aren't exactly simple by any means. Any curious reader, even if not particularly interested in physics or astronomy, will find this little book to be a gem. An extra treat is a few pages at the end describing prominent events from the lives of Einstein, Galileo, and Newton. Highly recommended read. Author of Adjust Your Brain: A Practical Theory for Maximizing Mental Health.

Hawkins may provide amazing insight into Astrophysics and have a Brillant Mind. However, he does a medicore job in explaining things and his writting style is often "choppy" and hard to read. He just does not expand on things well. The concepts in the book can be hard to grasp and the writting can make it very hard to stay focus.
I find other authors to be a much better selection like Neil Tyson with equal insight for the layman.

The book does provide alot of amazing insight into things like Black Holes, Time Travel, Entropy, Relativity and other cosmic delights.

Hawkins may provide amazing insight into Astrophysics and have a Brillant Mind. However, he does a medicore job in explaining things and his writting style is often "choppy" and hard to read. He just does not expand on things well.
I find other authors to be a much better selection like Niel Tyson and Brian Greene with equal the insight for the layman.

The book does provide alot of amazing insight into things like Black Holes, Time Travel, Entropy, Relativity and other cosmic delights.

If you can find it, I recommend this version over the original "Brief History of Time". This version was written about 8 years later and as such incorporates much that has been learned over the intervening years. In addition, the illustrations greatly enhance the text. They are not only a joy to look at, but actually make the book more understandable. The original work has been characterized as one of the most popular, but unread books of all time. Much of the unread characterization stems from the fact that this is a difficult book unless one has had some minimal understanding of physics. Minimal is, however, the appropriate word as one need not be a physicist to get a lot from this book, but one should not be put off by a discussion of quarks, gluons, gravitons, wormholes or string theory.

The first chapters deal with the classical view of physics and the universe. This is followed by discussions of the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics. It is important to note that these are not rigorous discussions, indeed no mathematics is used and the discussion is entirely devoted to the basic ideas and implications of these theories. At least one reviewer has criticized the fact that these subjects have not been developed in any detail, but rather are just expounded. I think that this misses the point. This is not a physics text; rather it tries (I think very successfully) to show the reader the beauty and implications of modern physics. I found the discussion of modern particle physics to be one of the best very elementary treatments that I have ever read. Next he discusses black holes and the origin of the universe. Again, I found his discussion of black holes to be one of the best very elementary treatments that I have ever read. The last chapters on wormholes, time travel and grand unified theories are more speculative than the preceding chapters, but the reader is clearly forewarned that this is the case. (The most speculative, and in my opinion least clear chapter, was the one on wormholes and time travel, which was not in the original version of "A brief History of Time".)

I liked this book a lot and do not agree with those who found it to be unclear and very difficult to follow, but I can see how those with no physics background at all would find it too difficult to finish. This version has the virtue of pictures which make following Hawking's text a bit easier to follow and as he states in the forward "Even if you only look at the pictures and their captions you should get some idea of what is going on."

As a physicist I am flabbergasted and slightly depressed by the success of this book. First of all this book presents as if they were equally certain some pieces of orthodox science together with some of the author's dubious speculations. The lay reader is not told which are which. Secondly, the author obviously has no knowledge of the actual history of physics and yet he shamelessly "describes" it to the reader.

Hawking seems to have gathered together all the bad cliches about various physical issues and has taken out all the valuable ideas. He explains nothing, he just asserts that "we physicists know that..., we physicists have demonstrated that...". I cannot see how anyone can actually learn anything about physics from this book, about why we know what we know. And yet, judging from the amount of praise this book receives, it seems that quite a lot of people have fallen under the spell that they have been allowed access to some secret. They haven't and I find this trickery immoral.

Quantum physics and astrophysics are really interesting. They don't deserve to be thrashed in this unashamed manner. If you want to learn something about physics, there are other books which do a much better job, for example Asimov's Atom: Journey Across the Subatomic Cosmos.

Stephen Hawking is a true genius. Although I don't understand everything he writes, all-in-all this book gives one the understanding of how wonderfully made the universe is.

I found this book to be ingenious yet accessible to the average reader, which is what I believe Hawking set out to accomplish. Great food for thought in my opinion.

It's a great book by Hawking, but this product is just a reproduction of something by Hawking/Jackson that we already know is great. So what sort of job does this product do of delivering one of my favorite audio books? Not a very good one.

The original recording sounds fine, but this production from 2005 sounds like it was converted to a low bit rate at some point during editing, and probably had a poor noise removal job done as well. For the benefit of removing possibly a little weak static in the background, we get to listen to a robotic Jackson for 5 hours. It sounds similar to an early digital cell phone with a choppy feel and many T's and S's muffled.

There really isn't any reason I can see for this to not be a perfect reproduction of earlier digital versions. Old bootlegs floating about the internet sound better. Maybe "Phoenix Audio" should have just grabbed those to print, and left all of that tricky audio work to the more competent civilian sector.

I have a stack of these :The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe,Cosmic Code and In Search/big Bang: /, so I can compare and contrast.
There is material on black holes here that isn't covered as well in the others. I still would wish that all these authors would put in more of the real equations and less of the dumbing down. One point is that people not able to understand this kind of book, probably won't understand no matter how simple you make the text. Maybe one should make effective use of your time in writing and concentrate on those who will understand and use the results.

I really wanted to like this book, however I couldn't. I have had this for over a year now and have yet to finish it, it just doesn't catch my attention. I am an Electrical Engineer so I have the technical background to understand this type of material, it just lacks something to keep the attention. There is a lot of useful information in this book, and more power to you if you can wade through it without falling asleep.

I have just read this book straight from cover to cover and I was deeply enthralled the entire time. Hawking is able to break complicated concepts down to chunks that are easily digestible by laymen. I found that I rarely needed to re-read sections in order to properly decipher them. The hardest chapter for me to get through was the one on particle physics, but it was downhill from there. Every page filled me with a sense of awe of the Universe and unanswered questions that I have had since childhood have been explained clearly. I could not recommend this book more.

I recently re read my old copy of this Hawking classic and was amazed at just what a timeless masterpiece Stephen Hawking managed to produce.

The current holder of Oxford's prestigious Lucasian chair (once held by Isaac Newton himself), Stephen Hawking distinguished himself in the early 1970s for helping to nail down proof that the universe arose from a singularity...John Wheeler's aptly dubbed "Big Bang." Additionally, Hawking shocked the physics community by proving that Black Holes radiate (shocking because their gravitational pull is so great it supposedly should prevent such radiation).

A dubious blessing of Hawkings status as a Lou Gehrig's Disease sufferer is that he has been forced to use a great deal of forethought in constructing his sentences...a quality obviously put to great use in this book which in oracular like fashion litterally explains the currrently understood mysteries of the universe.

It is also proper that in describing the state of cosmology -- from the Big Bang singularity at one of time to Black Hole singularities at the other end of time -- Hawking takes us to territory that from the confines of his wheelchair he has done so much to pioneer.

Still a highly recommended read!

While I've heard this book described as the least read best-seller, it is really worth the read. It can be difficult due more to Hawking's writing style than due to the subject matter. If you already struggle with the subject matter you may wish to consider his The Universe in a Nutshell because it is filled with explanatory diagrams that aid the reader's comprehension.

Very interesting, but a slow, fairly difficult read with complex subject matter. It is worth the time, even if you have no science background, just don't expect to read it all in one sitting, it takes time to sink in.

A Brief History of Time is a fascinating book that really delves into the hypothesized fabrics of our universe. Hawkins may be a genius, but he is still able to explain his works in ways that the rest of us can understand. Very informative if you are interested in this sort of thing.

It is a pity that Hawking only used several pages to explain the mysterious quantum world. Especially, his explanation of Feynman's path integral approach was misleading. The paths in Feynman's approach are not classical continuous paths at all, as Hawking depicted in his book. They are also quantum states.

However, Hawking's claim that each single electron must pass through two slits at the same time is right. But how does a single electron pass through two slits at the same time? It is well known that Hawking preferred many worlds theory, but he didn't refer to it in the book. In fact, it seems evident that the single electron can only pass through the two slits at the same time in a discontinuous way. Therefore, its motion must be not continuous but discontinuous. Such discontinuous motion is imaginable and comprehensible. It has actually been lucidly expounded in a recent book Quantum Motion - Unveiling the Mysterious Quantum World. A more popular introduction can be found at [..]

Once we realize that motion is discontinuous and random in reality, we may finally understand the mysterious quantum world, where an electron can pass through two slits at the same time.

This a very good way to really understand the subject, and a nice voice, with a command of the situation.

I loved the visuals! Simply awesome for people who are afraid they cannot handle complex physics. Every diagram is important and is a must for the personal library of every science lover. I recommend this book to any parent who wants their children to have a clear understanding of modern science.

In less than 200 pages of text, Dr Hawking distills some of the most difficult-to-understand concepts into something that is easy to read and understand. Not only that, he gives us amusing anecdotes that make both the theory aid the people behind the theory seem that much more accessible. Although it gets bogged down in places, it is most definately worth the read.

An excellent book. I strongly recommend it to anyone who is trying to understand where we came from and perhaps where we are going. Trying to grasp the concept of time and space can be very difficult, Mr. Hawking helps to unravel the understanding.

I think readers of this book have to keep in mind that Hawking is attempting to explain, amounst other things, two of the most complex, abstract theories ever conceived by man, namely quantum mechanics and general relativity (a theory that took the great Einstein himself 10 years to formulate!). If Hawkins had written this as an "An idiots guide to...", I don't think the book could genuinely claim to properly explain these topics and would not have done justice to the theories he attempts to explain

Admittedly, I did have to read certain passages twice, three, four.... times to fully understand the concepts and some of the diagrams could be improved upon, but all things considered he does a pretty good job...

I bought this book because of the reveiws. I am a review nut. I didnt really like the book. Its a little too out there if you know what I mean. I only got half way and maybe in the future I will give it a try again. It was alittle to hard to understand because of the way it was written.

A very well written book by an amazing human being. The most interesting topic in the book is time, or the other kind of time Hawking calls imaginagy time. This is not an outdated book even today. Recently Hawking has pointed out that there isn't a definite past, but rather an assortment of different possible pasts that trace back to the point of the big bang. In other words, the same big bang could have created any one of many universes possible in the larger multiverse.

Stephen is able to convey the theories of time space from past to present in a visual way, with analogies and examples so even poeple like myself who are mathimatically challenged understand and grasp the notion to a point where it becomes difficult to put the book down. essentially, the book rocks.

Universally hailed as the greatest theoretical physicist since Einstein, Dr. Hawking serves as both an intellectual and physical inspiration. His disability - Lou Gehrig's disease- serves to make his every endeavor a slow and tedious affair, and yet his professional output remains very high, both in quality and quantity. This book is no exception.
Written at the level of the layperson, it is clear, concise, and through. As the title suggests, he begins with the origin of the universe and progresses through the theoretical foundation for, and the evidence in favor of, the existence of black holes. Of particular interest is his thermodynamic analysis of black holes, showing that they too, obey the second law of thermodynamics. Combining the ideas of general relatively and quantum mechanics, he was able to show that a black hole is really not totally black; it does leak radiation at a rate inversely proportional to its mass. This debunking of the supposed "final fate of matter" once again shows that the universe "is stranger than we can possibly imagine."
The only sad note occurs in the acknowledgements when Dr. Hawking explains the lack of equations by stating that every equation that appears in a book will cut its sales in half. This is an unfortunate comment on the degree of intellectual sophistication of the reading public.

Published in School Science and Mathematics, reprinted with permission.

I wish Hawking would have put more flesh on some of the skeletons that he outlines. Clearly, he could have done so, for he is one of the great lights in modern physics. Still, it's a good overview for those who are interested but can't find time to read more in-depth accounts.

Stephen Hawking is a man deffinitly worth admiration. Some say this book is far too complicated and goes way over the common man's head, but I read this in 9th grade, and understood most of the content. This book stemmed a personal love and passion to learn more about Space. Great book!