A Briefer History of Time

Recently I got hold of this book, A Briefer History of Time by Stephen Hawking published back in 2005, and read it. And to my surprise I finished it really fast. I had taken rather a long time to read its predecessor, A Brief History of Time. I had to read and reread a chapter to properly get the concept. But this book is written in very lucid manner with lots of illustrations. Most of the technical contents are gone. So, general public with basic knowledge of school level physics can grasp its contents. Some new things are added of course, like progress in string theory etc.

The book starts like its predecessor, describing the beliefs held by Aristotle and Ptolemy of Geocentric universe. And how our concept of the universe changed from then gradually with new theories proposed by Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler... And then how Newton smashed the idea of absolute space and Einstein the idea of absolute time. Then the book discusses briefly the Special and General Theory of Relativity and the idea of curved space.

The discussion continues with the discovery of the expanding universe, and the several models of the universe. It then goes about discussing the Big Bang and Black Holes. After that, comes Uncertainty Principle, Quantum Mechanics and the incompatibility of General Relativity with quantum mechanics. The authors then considers the possibility of Time Travel and wormholes in space-time. Finally it throws some light on String Theory and its latest developments.

Oh! I forgot to mention is most important topic - the search for a unified theory that describes everything in the universe, which has been discussed throughout the book.

Well, I enjoyed reading this book. If you had not much luck with The Brief History of Time, you may try this "briefer" one. It is of course far easier to understand. In fact, I think everyone who want to know how far the human race has gone in unraveling the mysteries of the universe, must read this book.


A related thing -
Here you can watch the 1991 documentary film A Brief History of Time about Stephen Hawking. The film is a biography of Hawking's life, featuring interviews with family members, colleagues, and his childhood nanny.