Good book. I mean, I had to re-read a few things here and there for it to click, but that is not the authors fault. I think the late great Stephen Hawking did a great job on his version of astrophysics for dummies

This is the 4th or 5th book by Stephan Hawking that I have read this year. It should not be a surprise that based on his condition there are a lot of duplicate passages on many of his books, that’s alright because what he is talking about is incredibly complex.
I now have a better understanding of the cosmological constant and the uncertainty principle but mainly because of the appendix. Those are two things that very important that I need to understand better before I really understand Hawking.
I am ready to take a break from the complex writings of Hawking and move back to the philosophical writings of Sagan.
Also the strong and weak electrical energies.

"A briefer history of time" is briefer and simpler version of "A brief history of time". However I wish explanations to some theories made sense to me. I still feel unfullfilled about string theory and multi dimensions.

In addition, the language was a bit dry, or so I thought. After Carl Sagan's flowing poetry-like language, I am unimpreed by Stephen Hawking. Still humor wasn't absent.
Apart from those, I liked this book. Got good deal of information and understanding of theories. After reading science themed books, especially ones dealing with cosmos, you can't help but feel smaller and meaningless. However it also fuels your curiosity about universe and science. I really like popular science books and how they are great ways to understand science and even got even deeper.
3.5☆

If you're thinking of reading A Brief History of Time, read this first. At least if you're a total civilian, which I am.

My son and I read this together. We did have to hit the Internet pretty hard a few times to get clarification on some critical points; but all in all, this is a well-written, accessible introduction to some pretty heady stuff.

I would recommend having the basics of atomic structure and the life cycles of stars under your belt before giving this a go. Also, it really helped my son and me to resign ourselves to not being able to visualize certain concepts. Wave-particle duality is just plain weird, and I think it helps to do the best you can and ultimately just go with it, rather than struggling to fit this contradictory idea into a conventional kind of "making sense."

And now: on to The Illustrated A Brief History of Time (expanded and updated edition)!

To begin, I am not….scientifically inclined. But I would like to get a better grasp on some scientific principles, so I thought I would give this book a whirl. I didn’t grasp everything, by any means, but the book is very informative. I found it very interesting to learn how little/much physicists know about the universe, its properties, and the struggle to find natural governing laws that consistently prove true. I feel that I’ve learned a great deal from this book, and will probably read it again, at some future date, to try to absorb a little more. And I’m grateful that Mr. Hawking took the time to dumb down “A Brief History of Time”, because I don’t know that I’d ever tackle that one.

رائع!
كتاب لطيف، مختصر، ومركّز، يجعلك تعرف بشكل جيد أكثر الموضوعات التي تهم علماء الفيزياء اليوم
يحوي الكتاب عدة موضوعات متّصلة بطريقة ما، قرأت عن أكثرها سابقا بشكل منفصل، لكني لم أجد كتابا مثل هذا جامعا لها، بشكل واضح يجعلني أفهم رغم أني لستُ مختصّا
استمتعت به، وأراه مناسبا لكل من لديه أسئلة حول الفيزياء والكون بشكل عام.

Zamanın Daha Kısa Tarihi için Zamanın Kısa Tarihi'nin For Dummies versiyonu dense de aslında eksiğinden çok fazlası varmış. Daha sade bir dil ile güncellenen bu kitapta bazı teknik detaylar azaltılırken yine eklenen kısımlar da varmış. Evrenin mekaniklerini en ince detayına kadar sıradan bir insanın anlayacağı bir dilden okuyoruz. Big Bang, gorelilik, sicim, solucan delikleri ve bu kuramları ortaya atan bilim adamları. Evren nedir? sorusuna hala bir yanıt bulunamadı, evet ama en azından hakkında bir şeyler düşünülüyor olması bir gözlemci olarak bana büyük bir keyif veriyor. Bu kadar ağır konuları bizim de anlayabileceğimiz bir dilden anlattığı için Stephen Hawking'e ne kadar teşekkür etsek azdır. Huzur içinde yatsın

أهم ما في هذا الكتاب هو الرصد الذي يقوم به المؤلفان لمحاولات الفيزياء (كفرع من فروع العلوم الطبيعية) الاقتراب من اصدار حكم في المباحث الإلهية والمسائل الوجودية .

أو قل هو محاولة للمؤلفَين لرصد اقتراب الفيزياء من اصدار ذلك الحكم .

" نجد أنفسنا في عالم محير ، فنحن نريد أن نستوعب ما نرى من حولنا ونسأل : ما هي طبيعة الكون ؟ وما هو مكاننا فيه . ومن أين جئنا نحن وهو ؟ ولماذا هو على هذه الحالة التي هو عليها ؟"

يبني بعض الناس اجاباتهم لهذه الأسئلة على خرافات توارثوها ، ويبني آخرون تصوراتهم على معتقدات دينية آمن بها أسلافهم ، أما عالم الفيزياء فمن الطبيعي أن يبني تصوره على نظريات فيزيائية و رياضية فائقة ( كالنظرية النسبية و ميكانيكا الكم و نظرية الأوتار ) .

وعندي أن العلوم الطبيعية كالفيزياء ليس لها أن تمنح لأصحابها حق القول الفصل في مثل هذه المسائل ، وذلك لقصورها على ما يقبل الخضوع للتجرية والمشاهدة والتسجيل ، ولتناولها في بحثها أعراض الظاهرة وليس جوهرها . ولكنها في الوقت عينه تمنح لأصحابها سلم يصعدون من خلاله لتكوين رأي قوي ومحكم في تلك المسائل ليكون ضمن الآراء المطروحة .

ومن نافلة القول أن الرأي المتكون في معامل البحث العلمي ومختبرات الفضاء أجدر وأحق بالدراسة من الرأي المتكون في حلقات التدارس و اجتماعات الكهنة .

An exceptionally good, concise look at physics for the layman. The explanations were just super. Simple, yet not stupidly so for me with my high school & Sunday supplement level of education on the subject. There are some tough concepts to understand. For instance, wave-particle duality is pretty weird, so be prepared to stop the book & think about what he says at times. Maybe even repeat his explanation. I found most became fairly clear, even time travel, but maybe not string theory. That still seems a bit far out to me. (I've read that it might not be the correct path after all & now they're just ditching time completely since it might not exist at some levels.) And, I'm still not sold on such huge quantities of dark matter.

He did a great job debunking determinism & many of the older theories of the universe, but gently. He showed how they were stepping stones towards refining what we know today & things that we're still struggling to understand. He points out how the educational & social systems suffer from a lot of lag which I struggled with in school due to the contradictions with newer theories. My teachers made little sense in distinguishing between them & they never showed the growth nearly as well. He really is a genius to be able to dumb down such a complex subject so well. He looks forward to the day when we all understand the refinements of Einstein's equations & their consequences well enough that they're second nature. If everyone were to read & understand this book, we would.

Best of all, he makes it clear that many of the theories I was taught might be wrong in extremes, but are perfectly acceptable in my observable, living universe, so I don't feel like a complete idiot. Time varies with the observer, but the fractions of a second difference that my GPS uses are of intellectual interest only. I know the the rough basics of how the gadget works, so it isn't magic & that's all that really matters. Whew!

I was a bit surprised at his references to god since I thought he was an atheist. Apparently this was his way to explain in terms that he thought most people would understand. I found this on the web: Hawking now explained: "What I meant by 'we would know the mind of God' is, we would know everything that God would know, if there were a God. Which there isn't. I'm an atheist." He added: "Religion believes in miracles, but these aren't compatible with science." That makes more sense.

After listening to this, I'm glad I read it rather than A Brief History of Time. I don't need any more detail & doubt I could integrate an equation any more since I've had no need of anything beyond logic, simple algebra, & Euclidean geometry since I got out of school. (I haven't even bothered with trig since I find geometric constructions quicker & more accurate for woodworking.) Use it or lose it. I lost it & don't really miss it, but it also means I'm not going to be one of those ferreting out the secrets of the universe we are still struggling with. They're interesting, but of no practical value to me and, as he points out, science has progressed so much that no one can understand it all any more. So, this was a nice glance at a very interesting, if odd area.

VIAGGIO_NEL_TEMPO_QUANTISTICO

it.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teletrasporto...

it.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viaggio_nel_t...

Se alla fine del libro non vi è venuta voglia di cercare in internet questi due argomenti, allora il libro non è servito a molto.

Guardando quelle pagine si scopre che queste due azioni "fantascientifiche" sarebbero in teoria possibili. Fra molti anni. E con molti se.

Le pagine su Wikipedia sono più tecniche e "più matematiche" del libro, che è totalmente divulgativo. Molto più divulgativo del precedente libro di Stephen Hawking (a cui è stato aggiunto l'affascinante capitolo "Tunnel spazio-temporali e viaggi nel tempo").

Sono sicuro che metà dei lettori considererà questo libro troppo semplice e penserà d'aver sprecato il suo tempo, molti lo considereranno invece troppo difficile in quanto parla di fisica ed, effettivamente, negli ultimi capitoli il livello si alza parecchio. Anche questi penseranno d'aver sprecato tempo.
(Se invece avessimo la macchina del tempo...)

Questo libro l'ho "leggiucchiato" velocemente saltando alcune parti. E' stato un ottimo ripasso di fisica (effetto Doppler, teoria della relatività,..) ed un bell'incentivo a curiosare su internet.

Prima parte (circa metà libro).

Il libro non contiene praticamente nessun numero. E' pieno di esempi e di immagini.

Per spiegare il semplice concetto "se la massa di un corpo raddoppia, raddoppia anche la forza gravitazionale da esso esercitata" hanno "osato" disegnare due modelle che attraggono un uomo. Esempio al limite del volgare che a qualche fisico farà storcere il naso.

Molti esempi sono più simpatici ma ugualmente semplici. Un bosco che visto da lontano e' tutto uguale, mentre visto da vicino "cambia" aspetto. I palazzi vicino ai binari che, mentre noi viaggiamo in treno, sembrano muoversi rispetto al panorama che invece resta fermo. E altri disegni simili.

Se uno ha qualche base può sorvolare questa prima metà del libro guardando solo le immagini.

Consiglierei questo libro a tutte le persone che amano "leggere in diagonale" alla velocità (non della luce!) di una pagina ogni dieci secondi.

Per spiegare la relatività usa molti altri esempi.
Se voi salite su un ascensore con una palla in perfetto equilibrio sopra la testa, per voi la palla sarà ferma, mentre per chi vi guarda (attraverso i muri) quella palla si muoverà in verticale. E relativo disegno.

Sorpresa: non è l'esempio del libro. Ho preferito evitare altri spoiler.

Seconda parte.
Ho continuato a leggiucchiare, conscio di non avere tempo e voglia di approfondire questi argomenti (se qualcuno riuscirà a dilatare il tempo ne riparleremo). Se uno scopre d'essere interessato a questi argomenti, comunque gia in questo libro non semplici e per nulla intuitivi, dovrà cercare informazioni da altre parti. Le teorie delle stringhe, della supergravita e delle p-brane vengono solo accennate. E comunque questi accenni sono stati sufficienti per farmi girare la testa.

Per gli interessati nella pagina Wikipedia sono consigliati parecchi libri specifici sull'argomento viaggi nel tempo.

Sorpresa finale. Alla fine del libro tre mini biografie su Galileo, Einstein e Newton. La più lunga dura ben due facciate e mezza però sono interessanti.

Nonostante l'ironia, io trovo che sia un libro valido con uno stile molto scorrevole e che invoglia allo studio della fisica.

Non saprei a chi consigliare la lettura di questo libro. Io non posso dire di averlo letto. La prima parte era molto semplice, la seconda... non avevo tempo (chissà se teletrasporteranno l'uva un po' più in basso).

Forse lo consiglierei a chi non ha studiato fisica e vuole un'introduzione generale su alcuni concetti per capire meglio gli affascinanti segreti dell'universo.

E a chi vuole inventare la macchina del tempo!

I'm absolutely convinced that Hawking is the best man in the simple illustration of sciences especially the cosmology and physics in general.

In partnership with Mlodinow created such an exceptional informative rich text. I tought in the first pages that this book is totally different than the obvious one but, in very smart characters it links with the old one " I mean a brief of history of time"

I finished the last pages of this book while the power is down! I couldn't leave it until I finished it.

Absolutely deserves 5 stars in general and every page it contains.

The more interesting think that I highlighted more than 12% as I considered it as a Valuable provisions!

Fact: hasta el título de la obra "La Brevísima historia del Tiempo" es científicamente preciso.

Stephen Hawking y Leonard Mlodinow se dieron a la tarea de hacer de "La Breve historia del Tiempo" brevísima y digerible para los humanos no especializados en el campo de las ciencias. El objetivo fue conservar la esencia del libro original omitiendo el rigor técnico y sirviéndose de incorporar nuevos resultados teóricos derivados de la observación del comportamiento del Universo desde 1988.

La cronología va desde las primeras inquietudes de la humanidad para resolver las grandes preguntas fundamentales de la existencia, que, spoiler alert, siguen sin respuesta definitiva.

Este es un apartado que me pareció particularmente enriquecedor: "Las teorías físicas son siempre provisionales, en el sentido de que sólo son hipótesis: nunca las podemos demostrar. Sea cual sea el número de veces que los resultados concuerden con alguna teoría, nunca podemos estar seguros que la siguiente vez el resultado no la va a contradecir. En cambio, podemos refutar una teoría encontrando una sola observación que discrepe de sus predicciones"

Waw.

El recorrido es muy padre: de Aristóteles a Copérnico, para pasar de Galileo a Newton y las contribuciones de Einstein para tratar de llegar al objetivo final de la Física y las ciencias exactas: La Teoría de la Gran Unificación.