Let me state from the very beginning that the book "On The Shoulders of Giants" with commentary from Stephen Hawkin is not, in any way or form, a book for everyone. It is not a book for beginners. As someone who came to read this book, after having read biographies on Einstein and DaVinci, the theories of Einstein, Newton, and Copernicus, I was nevertheless lost at least half the time, totally lost. Yet, even in the dark I had gained knowledge that just a short time ago I had no idea existed. It is at once mind boggling and awe inspiring that such men, with such supreme intellectual and without the tools available in today's world, could achieve and conceive of such theories and discoveries is totally beyond me. This is a very, very big book and it will probably be a very long time before I pick it up again, but I am so very glad I did and have absolutely no regrets

Detailed.

nice

Discusses the life, works and contributions of Nicolaus Copernicus, Galileo Galilei, Johannes Kepler, Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking with regard to physics, astronomy, space science and theory. It looks like a series of wikipedia articles compiled only better lol. I like how it was explained in details and how they come up with the maths. Good for those who wants to expand their interest on the subject.

hawkings is great.astronomy is an infinite world in our world.

It took me months to finish this colossus but I did it!

Right, about the book...
Reading On The Shoulders of Giants is like time traveling through the most significant moments of physics. At times it was challenging, I'm not going to lie, but in the end it was totally worth. Stephen Hawking's intros about each physicist were some of my most favourite parts of the book. Unfortunately, you cannot review this book in the traditional sense since it's a collection of works by different authors. So I'm rating it as a whole: the progression of the book was brilliant both from a temporal perspective and a topical perspective, and the cohesiveness of the book was optimal. The only downside is that you can't tackle it all like any other book, you're gonna have to read it in chunks (sometimes weeks at a time).

great

A mix of fascinating and frustrating. I enjoyed the introductory contextual pieces by Hawking. I again really enjoyed the written context of some of the early writings by Galileo and Copernicus - they gave a good sense of the paradigm they lived in and struggled to escape and an appreciation for how much we take a heliocentric solar system and spherical globe for granted today.
on the other hand, the works by Kepler become difficult - mostly for its mystical babbling about the harmonies and ratios of Platonic solids ...
Despite having the illustrated version of this book, I was disappointed that with Kepler, Newton, and Einstein, there were numerous on-going geometric discussions with talk of labeled lines, chords and arcs etc. with NO corresponding diagram to follow along. With patience, I suppose one could read super critically and reconstruct the diagrams as discussed, but I just didn’t have the patience for what was otherwise expected to be an enlightening read, not a thesis regurgitation.
I was also disappointed in some of the writing selections offered. While Hawkings’ overview discussed certain topics of contribution, the same for the original authors written excerpts were not included.
Anyway, overall good stuff. It’s sciencey! Dig in. Appreciate the giants whose shoulders we stand on today.

Hawking's ‘On the Shoulders of Giants’ is a gem. The bulk of it is English translations of the Latin and German originals of his five chosen Giants of science. Their most famous books are represented here.

My copy stays close to hand above my desk simply as a handy reference. Over the years, I have returned often especially to Copernicus and Kepler. But those translations are not what give the book its value, because better and more accessible versions of all five are available elsewhere.

What you gain most from this book are Hawking’s wonderfully insightful introductory essays that make up the lamentably too brief 4 percent of the 1,266 pages in my copy of the 2002 Running Press edition.

Sensing the ever looming end of his own life, Hawking evidently considered he had, before it was too late, to acknowledge and pay homage to predecessors without whom he could have accomplished little on his own. His essays provide essential background to the life, times and cultural contexts in which were embedded the work of the five Giants on the shoulders from which his introduction insists modern science and by implication his own work, springs.

I like the title as much as the content. Do people even know from where the 'shoulders of giants' metaphor comes? It is certainly not Newton. Check out John of Salisbury’s 'Metalogicon' written in 1159 in which he credits his teacher, Bernard of Chartres by writing: "We frequently know more, not because we have moved ahead by our own natural ability, but because we are supported by the [mental] strength of others, and possess riches that we have inherited from our forefathers. Bernard of Chartres used to compare us to [puny] dwarfs perched on the shoulders of giants."

As befits a theoretical physicist, Hawking adapts Bernard’s metaphor and makes it his own. He transforms it from the stillness of a passive perch to the dynamics of a catapult. For Hawking, the ‘shoulders’ are not mere perches; they are not stable unmoving foundations on which to rest. No. No. No. His are springboards that launch cerebral mass into the motion of ‘intellectual leaps’ of dynamic new world pictures. Though his metaphor is apt, it nevertheless always sticks in my craw that if Hawking and Newton knew anything about the shoulders of their predecessor Chartrian teachers, they both certainly forgot to say so.

I can see Hawking here, reaching a certain stage in life, as we all must sooner or later, where the days of great leaps forward grow, in number and duration, greater behind us than ahead of us. As you ruminate over Hawking’s rearward looking essays, your mind may wander a bit. Mine began to visualize longer lists of Giants. Who would be on the list of Giants if each of Hawking’s five had also each chosen five more of their own? And then if each of those twenty-five more had each chosen theirs? And so on? Would the longer list grow into an exponentially expanding pyramid? Or, owing to duplicates and historically decreasing populations of candidates, would it converge onto a short list of the more historically distant but maybe even more Gigantesque? Who would we find at the bottom? Maybe Pythagoras? Maybe that clever Sumerian who first invented syllabic signs for record keeping? Would all the names be male? Would anybody think to include the long forgotten matronly troglodyte from whose shoulder was hung the first new-born to be wrapped, strapped and slung in the furry skins left over from a previous day’s lunch? Forget Big-bangs, Black-holes and calculus. Forget astronomy, geometry and arithmetic. Forget clocks, telescopes and printing presses. Forget parchment, vellum, papyrus and ink. Forget baked clay tablets. Where would we be without the shoulder of her giant leap forward that gave us both clothing and the carry-all in one fell swoop of unparalleled motherly genius?

Hawking’s ‘Shoulders’ inspires me to look back across the full sweep of the ages to gaze upon and pay homage to the great forward leaps of all those who came before us. He also forces me to take notice of the dwarf-like stature from which we all begin and out of which we must grow and develop. More than anything else, and perhaps more than anyone else, it is the exemplar of Hawking himself that impresses upon me that it is not the development of the body that matters. It is that of the mind.

And if ever there was a mind for all ages, a mind capable of grasping the fullness of the history of time, I know it was his.

He did, after all, write that book too.

Str. 12~ mnogo sodobnih učenjakov  verjame, da je bila potrditev teorije pri religioznih avtoritetah glavna ovira za napredek znanosti, kot tudi da je dvom v Aristotelotovo teorijo istočasno pomenil dvom v avtoriteto same Cerkve.

it took so long time to read this book. why? because i had to open the dictionaries and google for many-much times. but i believe i'm on my way to be a scientist:D

not really sure i would aim this at, maybe if you have a phD in physics with a speciality in being able to read pre-20th century physics papers with no diagrams illustrating the points. it had really cool sections on the biographies of the scientists, but i felt completely out of my depth in their actual writings, and i really feel like this book may have just been published for like postgrad physics students.