BS: Briefer history of time

Subject: Briefer history of time
From: Cappuccino
Date: 15 Oct 01 - 04:01 AM

A British paper reports today that Stephen Hawking's 'A brief history of time' is going to become even briefer - he's writing a short version for 12-year-olds. Thank heaven for that. I had the original on a set of 12 audio-cassettes, and it took me six replays of side one to get my head around Newton, Galileo, and Copernicus.

- IanB

Subject: RE: BS: Briefer history of time
From: mooman
Date: 15 Oct 01 - 04:19 AM

As a scientist myself I found the original somewhat hard to get my neuron around! I shall look forward to the 12-year old's version! Since the original was top or near the top of the bestsellers list for quite some "time" there must be some very confused people walking around or perhaps the book is just meant to sit in their bookshelves and impress visitors as hilariously related in Myles na Gopaleen's (Flann O'Brien) "The best of Myles". As in Myles, perhaps those people have also paid an out-of-work astrophysicist to visit their homes and write erudite observations in the margins of Stephen's book!

mooman

Subject: RE: BS: Briefer history of time
From: GUEST,Steve Parkes
Date: 15 Oct 01 - 10:35 AM

Ihae to sound like a smart-arse, but I had more trouble with the style thatn the content! In fact, I don't think I learned a lot that I didn't already know (from much previous reading on the subject). I think I expected a rather more mathematical treatment and then I would have been in trouble!). I know Hawking had to make a lot of revisions to make it graspable by non-mathematicians and non-physicists, and of course he's not used to writing for them, so I don't criticise the book, except to say it's a bit boring for bedtime reading. Try Richard Feynman's works if you want to learn about "sexy" physics--he was a very readable author.

Steve

Subject: RE: BS: Briefer history of time
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 15 Oct 01 - 10:40 AM

That's "I hate", not "I have"!

Subject: RE: BS: Briefer history of time
From: catspaw49
Date: 15 Oct 01 - 11:03 AM

Gawd, I loved Richard Feynman. Yeah, he made physics understandable, but he was so much more. Things he didn't believe about himself he showed in spades. It's hard not to become fascinated with the way his mind worked and his fearlessness in wading in to a subject where he was proved wrong.......he loved that. Most of us, even great thinkers of the past, don't have the capacity to accept evidence and be as overjoyed in being wrong as being right.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Briefer history of time
From: Kim C
Date: 15 Oct 01 - 11:06 AM

I still don't understand how those little people get inside the television...

Subject: RE: BS: Briefer history of time
From: Bert
Date: 15 Oct 01 - 11:08 AM

In little pieces Kim.

Subject: RE: BS: Briefer history of time
From: katlaughing
Date: 15 Oct 01 - 11:20 AM

We both read it and I didn't hear Rog complain, but I also found the style difficult to read, as well as having to re-read each part several times in order to think I may have "got it," even in some small way. I will be glad to check out the version for 12 year olds!

kat

Subject: RE: BS: Briefer history of time
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 15 Oct 01 - 01:59 PM

How about for four year olds?

See less than nothing. See less than nothing go "Bang". A Big Bang! A very very big bang! See nothing expand reall really fast. See nothing become very hot. See nothing cool. See nothing become something. Watch out for the entropy monster!! See all the little nothings get together and become stars. See the stars get old a go boom. See some star bits become more stars. See the little star bits become planets. See the little star bits on one planet become plants, then animals then people. See the stars burn out. Entropy monster wins! Everyboby dies. Goodbye.

Subject: RE: BS: Briefer history of time
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 15 Oct 01 - 02:38 PM

I hate to come off sounding like a smart ass, but Brief History Of Time was such an easy, enjoyable read, I keep going back to it just for pleasure...

it is my understanding, however, that Stephen Hawking is 'last years man' in the world of cosmology... It's a field where you age faster than computers obsolesce...

This "Briefer" idea sounds to me like he's still trying to milk his fame...

Subject: RE: BS: Briefer history of time
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Oct 01 - 02:39 PM

I agree with Steve Parkes, and after (I think) four times thru BHT, can provide specifics. Hawking is unable to pass up the chance to throw in a "chestnut" whether it fits or not. Examples: the line about Johnson refuting the idealists by stubbing his own toe on a rock, and the one about God creating Hell for people who ask too many questions. They just derail the main presentation; he never goes back and picks up the pieces. Also, I realize the man is brilliant, but also Hawking is a little full of Hawking now and then. His thing about who said what on the nature of Black Holes gets a bit tendentious, I think. And to write on this subject with no mention of Lemaitre is a bit cavalier. I found "Dancing Wu Li Masters" much easier to learn from, myself. Also BHT is now actually out of date enough to need, e.g., Kip Thorne's "Black Holes & Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy" as a sequel. First chap. of that is 'for kids' too.

CC

Subject: RE: BS: Briefer history of time
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 15 Oct 01 - 03:06 PM

Where else but Mudcat would one see anon. posters second guessing Stephen Hawking? And calling him cavalier?! I liked Brief History of time as much for the little stories and side notes as for the "science". I felt it gave me an insight into his character that I would not otherwise have had. Obviously, in spite of the objections GUEST liked it enough to read it four times.

It probably is time for a sequel. Or at least and update. If so I am sure that Mr. Hawking is technically current enough to write it if he so chooses. IanB were the audiocassettes in Mr. Hawkings computer-generated voice? If so, it must have seems like forever, relatively speaking.

Subject: RE: BS: Briefer history of time
From: Cappuccino
Date: 15 Oct 01 - 04:38 PM

Yes, Jack, I realise I should have mentioned that when posting - no, it was actor-read, and with no disrespect to Hawking, that was a relief. And the little-story bit I enjoyed was where he had the bet on with another scientist about, I think, black holes... and Hawking stood to win a year's subscription to Playboy.

However, although I was thinking of trying the 12-year-old version, I now realise that I'm better advised to go to something nearer my own level. Ah, here's one called: 'in search of the third chord'...!!!

- Ian B

Subject: RE: BS: Briefer history of time
From: GUEST,Lyle
Date: 15 Oct 01 - 10:00 PM

Thought this might be interesting to Hawking fans...

Humans Doomed Without Space Colonies, Says Hawking Updated: Mon, Oct 15 8:19 PM EDT

LONDON (Reuters) - The human race is likely to be wiped out by a doomsday virus before this millennium is out unless it starts to colonize space, top British scientist Stephen Hawking warned on Tuesday.

Hawking's comments came as the United States teetered on the brink of panic over possible germ warfare after anthrax-laced letters were delivered in the capital Washington and the states of New York, Nevada and Florida.

"I don't think the human race will survive the next thousand years unless we spread into space. There are too many accidents that can befall life on a single planet," Hawking told Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper.

Hawking, Lucasian professor of mathematics at Cambridge University in England, said Armageddon threatened not in the form of a Cold War-style nuclear holocaust but could arrive in a more insidious and invisible form.

"In the long term, I am more worried about biology. Nuclear weapons need large facilities, but genetic engineering can be done in a small lab. You can't regulate every lab in the world," he said.

Investigators have not pinned down who is behind the U.S. anthrax attacks, but fears are growing they could be retaliation for U.S. military strikes against Afghanistan, which followed last month's suicide attacks on New York and Washington.

Hawking, a leading theoretical physicists who hit the best-seller lists with his book "A Brief History of Time," said the chances of humanity pulling through looked good.

"I am an optimist. We will reach out to the stars," he said.

A Star Trek-style "warp drive" might be one way to relieve the tedium of lengthy journeys between stars in spacecraft traveling below the speed of light, Hawking said.

Subject: RE: BS: Briefer history of time
From: Cappuccino
Date: 16 Oct 01 - 10:15 AM

Thanks, Lyle. Now I think my overworked brain really is turning into scrambled egg.... I shall have to go and lie down in a dark corner!

- IanB

Subject: RE: BS: Briefer history of time
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 16 Oct 01 - 10:24 AM

How odd, it was upon reading his book that I finally decided that Einstein was right and that we would probably Not travel faster than light.

The Earth is too small a basket for all of humanity's eggs.

Subject: RE: BS: Briefer history of time
From: Wyrd Sister
Date: 16 Oct 01 - 03:12 PM

"In the beginning, there was nothing, which exploded." My Lord Pratchett,Lords and Ladies, page 7 in the paperback. Where's the problem?