"A Brief History of Time", published in 1988, has been a landmark volume in scientific writing and in worldwide acclaim and popularity, with more than nine million copies sold. That edition was on the cutting edge of what was then known about the nature of the universe. Since its publication, however, there have been extraordinary advances in the technology of...
"A Brief History of Time", published in 1988, has been a landmark volume in scientific writing and in worldwide acclaim and popularity, with more than nine million copies sold. That edition was on the cutting edge of what was then known about the nature of the universe. Since its publication, however, there have been extraordinary advances in the technology of observing both the micro- and the macrocosmic world, confirming many of Professor Hawking's predictions. Eager to bring to his original text the new knowledge revealed by these observations, Hawking has written a new introduction, updated chapters throughout, and added an entirely new chapter on Wormholes and Time Travel.
"A Brief History of Time" has guided nonscientists everywhere to confront the supreme questions of the nature of time and the universe, taking them to distant galaxies, black holes, alternate dimensions — as close as man has ever ventured to the mind of God. This anniversary edition makes vividly clear why Professor Hawking's eloquent classic has transformed our view of the universe.
Amazon.com
Stephen Hawking, one of the most brilliant theoretical physicists in history, wrote the modern classic A Brief History of Time to help nonscientists understand the questions being asked by scientists today: Where did the universe come from? How and why did it begin? Will it come to an end, and if so, how? Hawking attempts to reveal these questions (and where we're looking for answers) using a minimum of technical jargon. Among the topics gracefully covered are gravity, black holes, the Big Bang, the nature of time, and physicists' search for a grand unifying theory. This is deep science; these concepts are so vast (or so tiny) as to cause vertigo while reading, and one can't help but marvel at Hawking's ability to synthesize this difficult subject for people not used to thinking about things like alternate dimensions. The journey is certainly worth taking, for, as Hawking says, the reward of understanding the universe may be a glimpse of "the mind of God."
--Therese Littleton
From Library Journal
A new edition?with pictures?for those who couldn't fathom the original.
About Author
Stephen Hawking, who was born on the anniversary of Galileo's death in 1942, holds Isaac Newton's chair as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge. Widely regarded as the most brilliant theoretical physicist since Einstein, he is also the author of Black Holes and Baby Universes, a collection of essays published in 1993, as well as numerous scientific papers and books.
A Brief History of Time(Kindle电子书)
作者: [英]Stephen Hawking
eISBN: 978-0-553-89682-3
《时间简史》久仰大名,但以前真没有拜读过。一是看到许多关于中文翻译问题的争论,不知选择哪一中文版合适;另外怕读英文原版面临语言和理解的双重困难。但现在鼓起勇气,读了英文原版,觉得大师的科普读物真是不一般。遣词用句,没有特别艰深难以理...A Brief History of Time(Kindle电子书)
作者: [英]Stephen Hawking
eISBN: 978-0-553-89682-3
《时间简史》久仰大名,但以前真没有拜读过。一是看到许多关于中文翻译问题的争论,不知选择哪一中文版合适;另外怕读英文原版面临语言和理解的双重困难。但现在鼓起勇气,读了英文原版,觉得大师的科普读物真是不一般。遣词用句,没有特别艰深难以理解之处(当然Kindle电子书也减少了许多阅读障碍);同时也不像许多“傻瓜”科普读物那样,就是简单的堆砌,毫无难度和趣味而言。读《时间简史》,看懂词句的基础上,也需要思考,才能理解,这也激发了继续阅读的兴趣。如果想了解宇宙起源、天体物理、相对论、量子力学等相关理论,该书绝对不应错过!(展开)
We often think the present is a singular point which may lead to different alternative futures, and then we only “choose” to live in one of the versions of the future, or that when we observe all the futures, they collapse into one. However, one can also think this way: the future is a singular event and our present is one version of the multiverses, or we have multiple versions of the past...
2020-07-20 10:16:00
We often think the present is a singular point which may lead to different alternative futures, and then we only “choose” to live in one of the versions of the future, or that when we observe all the futures, they collapse into one. However, one can also think this way: the future is a singular event and our present is one version of the multiverses, or we have multiple versions of the past that can all lead to the same present. We are used to regard our past as some kind of known history, which is objective and even though people’s memories may distort it based on their basis and focal points, what happened is what happened and there is a universal truth to it. While, this may not be true. Our past, once occured, instantly got cut off from ourselves and got stamped into a 2D picture or 3rd person narrative story, a steam of memory, and stored in our brain. Maybe there are different versions of these pictures, memories or stories but we chose only to store one version of it. maybe the characters and the particules in the pictures, the old us, were vacillating and moving all over the place in the past picture, just like quantom mechanics dictates.
To make a non-scientific metaphor, humans or all organisms with memories are like conputers, which are reboosted at every minimal segment of time. We start anew at every instant but with memories stored in our hard drive like a video tape. however, how can we know that these video tapes are true? how do we know that the memories or even us actually existed? how do we know our past and past of past, present, future and distant future are a continuum, rather than discrete segments that dont relate each other? maybe they can also be reshuffled and placed in different sequences.
The gravitational force between two bodies would decrease more rapidly with distance than it does in three dimensions. (In three dimensions, the gravitational force drops to ¼ if one doubles the distance. In four dimensions it would drop to ⅛, in five dimensions to 1/16, and so on. )
2020-01-06 17:44:14
The gravitational force between two bodies would decrease more rapidly with distance than it does in three dimensions. (In three dimensions, the gravitational force drops to ¼ if one doubles the distance. In four dimensions it would drop to ⅛, in five dimensions to 1/16, and so on. )
A theory is a good theory if it satisfies two requirements. It must accurately describe a large class of observations on the basis of a model that contains only a few arbitrary elements, and it must make definite predictions about the results of future observations. Any physical theory is always provisional, in the sense that it is only a hypothesis: you can never prove it. No matter how many t...
2015-11-16 08:32:16
A theory is a good theory if it satisfies two requirements. It must accurately describe a large class of observations on the basis of a model that contains only a few arbitrary elements, and it must make definite predictions about the results of future observations.
Any physical theory is always provisional, in the sense that it is only a hypothesis: you can never prove it. No matter how many times the results of experiments agree with some theory, you can never be sure that the next time the result will not contradict the theory. ...Each time new experiments are observed to agree with the predictions the theory survives, and our confidence in it is increased; but if ever a new observation is found to disagree, we have to abandon or modify the theory.
At least that is what is supposed to happen, but you can always question the competence of the person who carried out the observation.
We often think the present is a singular point which may lead to different alternative futures, and then we only “choose” to live in one of the versions of the future, or that when we observe all the futures, they collapse into one. However, one can also think this way: the future is a singular event and our present is one version of the multiverses, or we have multiple versions of the past...
2020-07-20 10:16:00
We often think the present is a singular point which may lead to different alternative futures, and then we only “choose” to live in one of the versions of the future, or that when we observe all the futures, they collapse into one. However, one can also think this way: the future is a singular event and our present is one version of the multiverses, or we have multiple versions of the past that can all lead to the same present. We are used to regard our past as some kind of known history, which is objective and even though people’s memories may distort it based on their basis and focal points, what happened is what happened and there is a universal truth to it. While, this may not be true. Our past, once occured, instantly got cut off from ourselves and got stamped into a 2D picture or 3rd person narrative story, a steam of memory, and stored in our brain. Maybe there are different versions of these pictures, memories or stories but we chose only to store one version of it. maybe the characters and the particules in the pictures, the old us, were vacillating and moving all over the place in the past picture, just like quantom mechanics dictates.
To make a non-scientific metaphor, humans or all organisms with memories are like conputers, which are reboosted at every minimal segment of time. We start anew at every instant but with memories stored in our hard drive like a video tape. however, how can we know that these video tapes are true? how do we know that the memories or even us actually existed? how do we know our past and past of past, present, future and distant future are a continuum, rather than discrete segments that dont relate each other? maybe they can also be reshuffled and placed in different sequences.
The gravitational force between two bodies would decrease more rapidly with distance than it does in three dimensions. (In three dimensions, the gravitational force drops to ¼ if one doubles the distance. In four dimensions it would drop to ⅛, in five dimensions to 1/16, and so on. )
2020-01-06 17:44:14
The gravitational force between two bodies would decrease more rapidly with distance than it does in three dimensions. (In three dimensions, the gravitational force drops to ¼ if one doubles the distance. In four dimensions it would drop to ⅛, in five dimensions to 1/16, and so on. )
but the gravitational field inside a black hole is so strong that even a real particle can have negative energy there. It is therefore possible, if a black hole is present, for the virtual particle with negative energy to fall into the black hole and become a real particle or antiparticle. As the black hole loses mass, the area of its event horizon gets smaller, but this decrease in the entro...
2020-01-04 15:41:05
but the gravitational field inside a black hole is so strong that even a real particle can have negative energy there. It is therefore possible, if a black hole is present, for the virtual particle with negative energy to fall into the black hole and become a real particle or antiparticle.
As the black hole loses mass, the area of its event horizon gets smaller, but this decrease in the entropy of the black hole is more than compensated for by the entropy of the emitted radiation, so the second law is never violated.
there might be primordial black holes with a very much smaller mass that were made by the collapse of irregularities in the very early stages of the universe. Such black holes would have a much higher temperature and would be emitting radiation at a much greater rate. A primordial black hole with an initial mass of a thousand million tons would have a lifetime roughly equal to the age of the universe. Primordial black holes with initial masses less than this figure would already have completely evaporated, but those with slightly greater masses would still be emitting radiation in the form of X rays and gamma rays. These X rays and gamma rays are like waves of light, but with a much shorter wavelength. Such holes hardly deserve the epithet black: they really are white hot and are emitting energy at a rate of about ten thousand megawatts.
0 有用 pubb 2012-09-12 22:02:15
始自机舱,终至厕所。不容易,总算看完了。好书。
0 有用 一朵蘑菇君 2015-07-19 23:51:21
怎么办, 看完这个我好像爱上了科学...
0 有用 yihan爱书橱 2013-03-24 18:45:28
再次彻底颠覆了我对时空的认知呀!初中时候读过这书,可居然把时间的相对性和时空一体性这两个重要的概念都忘精光了,惭愧惭愧!另,认真客观严谨又谦虚的科学家们其实真的好可爱!
0 有用 曹华 2015-01-30 21:56:47
A Brief History of Time(Kindle电子书) 作者: [英]Stephen Hawking eISBN: 978-0-553-89682-3 《时间简史》久仰大名,但以前真没有拜读过。一是看到许多关于中文翻译问题的争论,不知选择哪一中文版合适;另外怕读英文原版面临语言和理解的双重困难。但现在鼓起勇气,读了英文原版,觉得大师的科普读物真是不一般。遣词用句,没有特别艰深难以理... A Brief History of Time(Kindle电子书) 作者: [英]Stephen Hawking eISBN: 978-0-553-89682-3 《时间简史》久仰大名,但以前真没有拜读过。一是看到许多关于中文翻译问题的争论,不知选择哪一中文版合适;另外怕读英文原版面临语言和理解的双重困难。但现在鼓起勇气,读了英文原版,觉得大师的科普读物真是不一般。遣词用句,没有特别艰深难以理解之处(当然Kindle电子书也减少了许多阅读障碍);同时也不像许多“傻瓜”科普读物那样,就是简单的堆砌,毫无难度和趣味而言。读《时间简史》,看懂词句的基础上,也需要思考,才能理解,这也激发了继续阅读的兴趣。如果想了解宇宙起源、天体物理、相对论、量子力学等相关理论,该书绝对不应错过! (展开)
0 有用 大钻石 2019-01-25 05:27:19
这本书在我list上很多年. 终于花了三周时间 听了一遍 读了一遍. 很有趣的书. 复习了高中物理 也串联起了我日常听过各种细碎的物理 天文概念. 有个概念 entropy ”熵” 以前听说过但不懂 现在终于明白了. 还学习了很多新知识 比如 Cosmic Censorship, Anthropic principle, Chaotic Inflationary model, No Boundar... 这本书在我list上很多年. 终于花了三周时间 听了一遍 读了一遍. 很有趣的书. 复习了高中物理 也串联起了我日常听过各种细碎的物理 天文概念. 有个概念 entropy ”熵” 以前听说过但不懂 现在终于明白了. 还学习了很多新知识 比如 Cosmic Censorship, Anthropic principle, Chaotic Inflationary model, No Boundary condition, String Theory...到最后物理问题都是哲学问题. (展开)
0 有用 钅普 2022-04-09 12:09:02
霍金搞专业厉害,文笔也不错,但是在有限的篇幅里想讲太多东西,很多地方直接说由a可以证明b,但缺少能把读者逻辑串联的解释。
0 有用 sky 2022-04-02 22:00:59
Almost cried at page 27, 59, 72, 90, 98, 116, 124, 126, 138, 139, 140, 144, 184, 191. Eternal inflation and multiverse The information paradox
0 有用 gongetbetter. 2022-03-28 01:44:39
从别人那白嫖的书,勉强读了半本。
0 有用 狂风暴雨 2021-12-28 18:40:35
First read, too technical and hard to remember. But a way to understand the time, I should read it more to comprehend deeper
0 有用 栗子 2021-08-03 16:19:26
初中时读了几页,却因为语言能力和物理知识的限制望洋兴叹;高中又拿起来,依然半途而废。再次读同一本书已是博士生了,竟然变成了因为觉得太基本为了避免太无聊要跳着读。庆幸自己依然在探索宇宙奥秘与我们的存在的这条路上走着。也越来越理解小时候爸爸说的“想多了宇宙与存在,会觉得一切都虚无而疯掉”。大概只有接受人类相对宇宙的愚昧和渺小才能心态平和地继续活下去吧