Stephen Hawking’s A Briefer History of Time: A Review

There was a young lady of Wight

Who traveled much faster than light.

She departed one day,

In a relative way,

And arrived on the previous night.

pg 108; On wormholes and time travel

For anyone interested in learning more about the theories regarding the universe (in physics, quantum mechanics, mathematical equations, etc), this book is a perfect gem. Written for the public knowledge, it removes the largely complicated information regarding worm holes, string theory, etc and focuses on the basics of the ideas. Starting out with Newton’s laws of gravity and Einstein’s theory of relativity, Hawking gives the reader the background needed to understand the rest of the book.

My favorite chapters were Newton’s Universe, Relativity, The Big Bang, Black Holes, and the Evolution of the Universe, and The Forces of Nature and the Unification of Physics. The last chapter I mentioned, especially the Unification of Physics, discusses string theory, a topic that I find very interesting. The only chapter I could not follow was on Quantum theory (i.e. quantum mechanics = electrons, positrons, quarks, etc); the only time I ever acted interested in quantum mechanics was at a science trip, and I only stayed awake because the guy had an amazing Australian accent.

So, for anyone interested in the general theories of our universe, I definitely recommend this book. And if you cannot completely follow it, do not worry! It has pictures!