Stephen Hawking's Universe: The Cosmos Explained

by David Filkin and Stephen Hawking

Book Overview

Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time has sold over 9 million copies worldwide. Now, in everyday language, Stephen Hawking's Universe reveals step-by-step how we can all share his understanding of... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0465081983
• ISBN13: 9780465081981
• Release Date: October 1998
• Publisher: Basic Books
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 1.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 7.3" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Excellent cosmology book for begginers

When I first saw this book, I thought it was going to be a little difficult to read and understand. I started reading it and it became clear that it was very easy to understand. Filkin begins the book with information about the early astronomers who tried to explain the cosmos with no scientific instruments at all. The book works up through all of the other very important astronomers of all time to the present day greats such as Stephen Hawking. The later part of the book focuses more on the origin of the universe and the search for the one theory to connect everything in the universe together. There is also information on black holes and such. Again, this book is good for begginers, but also anyone interested in astronomy and the origin of the universe. For anyone looking for more information about this subject, I would recomend Stephen Hawking`s "A Brief History of Time"

Read it = enjoyment Guaranteed

Stephen Hawking's universe is one of the best books I ever read in my life.It is a great book for beginners, as well as advanced scientists. It explains the universe and other subjects, without the use of complex equations. This book is written in the form of a science timeline, which includes lots of Titans of the science world. These great people include Albert Einstein, Newton, Stephen Hawking and others. No matter how smart the reader is, if he likes science he should read this book. This book is like a database of scientific facts and theories. In the book, journey through time and find out about the earliest Greek mathematicians to Newton's Infinite Universe. Then 500 years later read how his theories were being proven wrong again by Einstein and others. Read about the people who started science and then the others who improved it. Here in this book you will find all the facts of science. I loved this book and I hope you will too. Two Thumbs up.

This book was everything I expected it to be and more!

I'm only fourteen, and such books can often be intimidating. I was pleasantly surprised to find this book easy to read and understand. It's an excellent book to read if you're looking for a relatively general explination of the cosmos.

Must Read, Simple as That

First, Stephen Hawking did not write this book. A journalist wrote it, as a history of the development of our understanding through the sciences and key players of the respective times, culminating in our time and key player, Stephen Hawking.Second, it is an excellent explanation of how we got to where we are in understanding. What I like about it most, is what I found in it that is absent in most such books - an honest admitting that, at every turn and at every new development, more questions were generated than answers, and the possible answers have not yet been able to eliminate the possiblity of randomness or creative divinity at the beginning.In addition, it shows clearly that scientists have made as many mistakes as the religious (i.e. the use of radio-active material at its earliest use in society).Most importantly, there is a documented record of the historal view that the big bang was a Christian contribution that does not destroy the idea of God, but was supportive of the idea of God, through science. The whole story of Einstein's criticism of Newton's physics (the foundation of astronomy for hundreds of years); the implications of the Hubble expanding universe discovery and Lemaitre's reasoning back to the day before which there was not; this history, so conveniently overlooked in so much of the literature, is the line upon which Stephen Hawking's work with black holes rests.The theories, the conjectures, the politics, the pride and competition, all these issues are a part of the history of the development of our current understanding, far from the image of scientists as noble altruistic champions in the search for absolute truth that we'd be lead to believe.And finally, the concept of "faith" is not the property of the religious. This book makes faith a key element in the work of the scientists who believe things they can't see or empirically experience. Faith then becomes the catalyst for the direction in which one searches, and the template of interpretation once something is found.In this, all people are one, in that, whatever we do, faith must be a component thereof.Hats off to David Filkin.

Couldn't put it down--makes you want to major in Astronomy

I watched a tv documentary that initially got me rraelly interested in the universe. I went to the bookstore and I got this as a first book. I started reading it, and couldn't stop!! This book presents the development of science and its discoveries and thought processses in a very logical, clear way. It's analogies are excellent ex. space-time as a plane, pulling of gravity as a hole in that plane, the workings of the particle accelelator as a big slide....I mean this book really helps you visualize the complex mathematical equations of the Great Minds of Newton, Einstein, etc etc. You come to understand@(not just read about) the challenges and problems cosmoly presented at each step and how they were solved by ingenious minds. I feel like I learned more from the pictures and the analogies in this absorbing book than in any of my classes at my college. This is an excellent book to start learning about astronomy--you MUST get it, it is worth so much more than what you pay!!