|  | Author: Stephen Hawking
Publisher: Bantam
List Price: $18.00
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Seller: thriftit
Rating:  322 reviews
Sales Rank: 2176
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Edition: 10 Anv
Pages: 224
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.6
ISBN: 0553380168
Dewey Decimal Number: 523.1
EAN: 9780553380163
ASIN: 0553380168
Publication Date: September 1, 1998
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Satisfaction Gauranteed. Media Mail delivery times are not gauranteed by the Post Office. Most items arrive in 10-14 business days. Shipments to the West Coast from time to time are taking longer then 14 business days. If you need your item sooner then 14 business days please use expedited shipping. We have no control over the delivery speed once an item leaves our warehouse. Book shows little or no wear. In good reading condition.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 21-25 of 322
 Easily readable and incredibly enjoyable December 2, 2008
Javier Arriero Pas (Madrid, Spain EU)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is a popular science classic that cannot be left outside any general astronomy/physics bookshelf.
Dr. Hawking explains, with the mastery of an able writer, the history and structure of the known universe, non-euclidean geometry, the laws of the small and of the large, the laws and fate of stars, black holes and singularities, and the very matter that builds us. It finishes with an argumentation about time, following the second law of thermodynamics, and mixing it with information theory (though not explicitly stated).
I personally love this book and, in my opinion, its a star (of the popular science books), as the material it is built from used to be.
Transport yourself into possibility. October 16, 2008
Christopher R. Baldock (Los Angeles, California, USA)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book absolutely recreates the wonder I felt looking at the stars as a child. Stephen Hawking has a knack like no other I have read in the science world of transporting the reader to a realm of humbling amazement and possibility. Pure genius bubbling over with dry humor that will never fail to raise a smile as your senses burn with curiosity for our elegant and beautiful universe. I've had this book for years but it is still a favorite that I can't wait to share with my own son.
Highly recommended to everybody interested in Astronomy and Nuclear Physics October 14, 2008
Rasih Bensan (Istanbul, Turkey)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Stephen Hawking, one of the greatest contemporary physicists explores in a very interesting and informative way the unresolved riddles about the universe and the structure of particles, energy, time, gravity, various forces in the universe, god and their relationship with one another. His approach is both scientific and philosophical raising questions about the meaning of human existence in the universe. Although quite detailed the questions raised and alternative explanations offered are appealing both to the amateur and the professional. Stephen Hawking approaches the fundamental issues from many aspects including Newtonian physics, Special and General Relativity of Einstein, Quantum physics, string theory etc. He compares the different approaches, explains how they arose historically and the quest for a unified theory of the universe. Of course he devotes a lot of time to the primary issue of the creation and possible end of the universe. His treatment of matter and antimatter are especially interesting. I had read the book many years ago, recently I listened to the audio CD. I recommend both as a rich source of knowledge about these topics from a leading scientist on these issues.
I also recommend The Fabric of the Cosmos by Brian Green which is also a very interesting exploration of the same issues.
 A bit too brief September 27, 2008
Adam D. Shomsky (Detroit, MI USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I felt like there wasn't enough information in Hawking's explanations to really understand the concepts. So many times the fragments of information provided left me with a vague idea and a lot of questions.
For instance, Hawking writes "a matter particle, such as an electron or a quark, emits a force-carrying particle. The recoil from this emission changes the velocity of the matter particle. The force-carrying particle then collides with another matter particle and is absorbed. This collision changes the velocity of the second particle, just as if there had been a force between the two matter particles." I thought this was fascinating, and I can understand how that would cause a repulsive force in terms of classical Newtonian physics as long as the force-carrying particle has mass. But he goes on to say that some force-carrying particles "have no mass of their own". So I'm left with several questions:
1. How do force-carrying particles with no mass transmit a force? How can the ejection of a massless particle cause a recoil?
2. How do force-carrying particles generate attractive forces?
3. Does an electron in isolation, for instance, continually fire out force-carrying particles in all directions all the time to generate its electric field? Does it just have an infinite number of force particles to eject? If not, how does it "know" to emit force-carrying particles towards another electron when it comes near so as to repel it? It's no good to postulate that the other electrons' electric field compels the electron to eject a force-carrying particle because the exchange of particles is supposed to constitute the electric field.
At every turn, I'm left with these vague concepts and unanswered questions. I took three university physics courses and touched on relativity and briefly on quantum mechanics. In school, often one starts by learning equations and only later does a qualitative understanding really develop. I had hoped to better learn that second half of the puzzle by reading some qualitative descriptions with perhaps some analogies or illustrative anthropomorphisms about what an electron "wants" to do. In Hawking's defense, perhaps the difficulty in giving an intuitive description is inherent to the material which is counterintuitive by its nature.
Also, there were a lot of pronouncements of "X is true" without any explanation of how we know it's true. What experimental results attest to the truth of this proposition? Perhaps such explanations are beyond the scope of this book but they would have been interesting I think.
These difficulties aside, I did learn some interesting concepts and I still felt like the book was a worthwhile read.
 unintelligible September 18, 2008
JP (Raleigh, NC)
6 out of 13 found this review helpful
History will look back at this best selling book and here is what it should say: This book is very lucid to those who have not read it, but it is quite unintelligible to those who have. Buy this book, it doesn't cost that much, to see how a supposedly great scientist cannot put together a coherent thought on paper. It you want to read clear scientific writing, read Lev Landau and then compare to this tripe by Hawking.
Showing reviews 21-25 of 322
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