Helpful Score: 2
This VERY short book covers much of the same ground covered back in the 80's in "A Brief History of Time" which I recommend over this one, as it covers it in a much more in-depth manner. Stephen Hawking seems to be trying to cash in on the new Atheism movement by stressing that the anthropic principle answers the question of why our environment is so perfectly suited for life--if it weren't, we wouldn't be here to ask the question--and so a creator god is not required. He said this in Brief History of Time. The only new wrinkle is that M-Theory now supports the idea of an infinite number of universes, so the anthropic principle also applies to the laws of physics.
Helpful Score: 1
I really looked forward to reading this, and I was really disappointed.
First of all, it's a very short 180 pages. Each new chapter gets a title on one page, then a blank page, then the chapter starts. There are several full page pictures with the backs blank. Even the number of words on a page seems small. They really stretched to make this thing a book. It's a long essay.
Second, having read The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory, I can say that that book explains things much better. I only have a layperson's understanding of anything physics, and the usual discussions of relativity (imagine someone shining a beam of light who's in a moving train or on a jet or whatever, and the perceived speed of light from an observer on the train or jet or whatever and a person on the ground, but now accept that the speed of light stays the same but that time must be different for the two observers) are done so casually here that the diagram of a photon bouncing between two plates shows it going vertically while moving laterally, while the discussion is of a beam of light going front to back on an airplane moving forward.
I also found the discussions on quantum theory wanting. Again, I'm comparing it to Greene's discussion, and some famous experiments shooting photons through one slit or two. I can't wrap my head around it entirely, but I still want more than this too-brief discussion that concludes that our universe has many histories. I mean, if you want me to accept that, sell me on it!
Finally, and I guess they were trying to make it 'friendly,' there are a lot of one-liners that aren't funny. They tip their hands, they try to hard, and there's exactly one per section.
I would have given this one star except that I realized I might have thought more of this book if I hadn't read Greene's first.
First of all, it's a very short 180 pages. Each new chapter gets a title on one page, then a blank page, then the chapter starts. There are several full page pictures with the backs blank. Even the number of words on a page seems small. They really stretched to make this thing a book. It's a long essay.
Second, having read The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory, I can say that that book explains things much better. I only have a layperson's understanding of anything physics, and the usual discussions of relativity (imagine someone shining a beam of light who's in a moving train or on a jet or whatever, and the perceived speed of light from an observer on the train or jet or whatever and a person on the ground, but now accept that the speed of light stays the same but that time must be different for the two observers) are done so casually here that the diagram of a photon bouncing between two plates shows it going vertically while moving laterally, while the discussion is of a beam of light going front to back on an airplane moving forward.
I also found the discussions on quantum theory wanting. Again, I'm comparing it to Greene's discussion, and some famous experiments shooting photons through one slit or two. I can't wrap my head around it entirely, but I still want more than this too-brief discussion that concludes that our universe has many histories. I mean, if you want me to accept that, sell me on it!
Finally, and I guess they were trying to make it 'friendly,' there are a lot of one-liners that aren't funny. They tip their hands, they try to hard, and there's exactly one per section.
I would have given this one star except that I realized I might have thought more of this book if I hadn't read Greene's first.
