A Brief History of Time

Download as pdf or txt
Download as pdf or txt
You are on page 1of 67

A Brief History of

Time
Page issues

A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang


to Black Holes is a popular-science book
on cosmology (the study of the universe)
by British physicist Stephen Hawking.[1] It
was first published in 1988. Hawking
wrote the book for nonspecialist readers
with no prior knowledge of scientific
theories.
A Brief History of Time

26 KB

Author Stephen Hawking

Country United Kingdom

Language English

Subject Cosmology

Publisher Bantam Dell Publishing


Group
Publication date 1988

Media type Print (Hardcover and


Paperback)
Pages 256

ISBN 978-0-553-10953-5

OCLC 39256652
Dewey Decimal 523.1 21

LC Class QB981 .H377 1998

Followed by Black Holes and Baby


Universes and Other
Essays

In A Brief History of Time, Hawking writes


in non-technical terms about the structure,
origin, development and eventual fate of
the universe, which is the object of study
of astronomy and modern physics. He
talks about basic concepts like space and
time, basic building blocks that make up
the universe (such as quarks) and the
fundamental forces that govern it (such as
gravity). He writes about cosmological
phenomena such as the Big Bang and
black holes. He discusses two major
theories, general relativity and quantum
mechanics, that modern scientists use to
describe the universe. Finally, he talks
about the search for a unifying theory that
describes everything in the universe in a
coherent manner.

The book became a bestseller and sold


more than 10 million copies in 20 years.[2]
It was also on the London Sunday Times
bestseller list for more than five years and
was translated into 35 languages by
2001.[3]

Publication
Early in 1983, Hawking first approached
Simon Mitton, the editor in charge of
astronomy books at Cambridge University
Press, with his ideas for a popular book on
cosmology. Mitton was doubtful about all
the equations in the draft manuscript,
which he felt would put off the buyers in
airport bookshops that Hawking wished to
reach. With some difficulty, he persuaded
Hawking to drop all but one equation.[4]
The author himself notes in the book's
acknowledgements that he was warned
that for every equation in the book, the
readership would be halved, hence it
includes only a single equation: E = mc2.
The book does employ a number of
complex models, diagrams, and other
illustrations to detail some of the concepts
it explores.

Contents
In A Brief History of Time, Stephen
Hawking attempts to explain a range of
subjects in cosmology, including the Big
Bang, black holes and light cones, to the
nonspecialist reader. His main goal is to
give an overview of the subject, but he also
attempts to explain some complex
mathematics. In the 1996 edition of the
book and subsequent editions, Hawking
discusses the possibility of time travel and
wormholes and explores the possibility of
having a universe without a quantum
singularity at the beginning of time.

Chapter 1: Our Picture of the


Universe
A picture of Ptolemy's earth-centric model about the
location of the planets, stars, and sun.

In the first chapter, Hawking discusses the


history of astronomical studies, including
the ideas of Aristotle and Ptolemy.
Aristotle, unlike many other people of his
time, thought that the Earth was round. He
came to this conclusion by observing lunar
eclipses, which he thought were caused by
the earth's round shadow, and also by
observing an increase in altitude of the
North Star from the perspective of
observers situated further to the north.
Aristotle also thought that the sun and
stars went around the Earth in perfect
circles, because of "mystical reasons".
Second-century Greek astronomer
Ptolemy also pondered the positions of
the sun and stars in the universe and
made a planetary model that described
Aristotle's thinking in more detail.
Kepler's sun-centric elliptical orbit model of the solar
system

Today, it is known that the opposite is true:


the earth goes around the sun. The
Aristotelian and Ptolemaic ideas about the
position of the stars and sun were
disproved in 1609. The first person to
present a detailed argument that the earth
revolves around the sun was the Polish
priest Nicholas Copernicus, in 1514.
Nearly a century later, Galileo Galilei, an
Italian scientist, and Johannes Kepler, a
German scientist, studied how the moons
of some planets moved in the sky, and
used their observations to validate
Copernicus's thinking. To fit the
observations, Kepler proposed an elliptical
orbit model instead of a circular one. In his
1687 book on gravity, Principia
Mathematica, Isaac Newton used complex
mathematics to further support
Copernicus's idea. Newton's model also
meant that stars, like the sun, were not
fixed but, rather, faraway moving objects.
Nevertheless, Newton believed that the
universe was made up of an infinite
number of stars which were more or less
static. Many of his contemporaries,
including German philosopher Heinrich
Olbers, disagreed.
The origin of the universe represented
another great topic of study and debate
over the centuries. Early philosophers like
Aristotle thought that the universe has
existed forever, while theologians such as
St. Augustine believed it was created at a
specific time. St. Augustine also believed
that time was a concept that was born
with the creation of the universe. More
than 1000 years later, German philosopher
Immanuel Kant thought that time goes
back forever.

In 1929, astronomer Edwin Hubble


discovered that galaxies are moving away
from each other. Consequently, there was
a time, between ten and twenty billion
years ago, when they were all together in
one singular extremely dense place. This
discovery brought the concept of the
beginning of the universe within the
province of science. Today, scientists use
two partial theories, Einstein's general
theory of relativity and quantum
mechanics, to describe the workings of
the universe. Scientists are still looking for
a complete unified theory that would
describe everything in the universe.
Hawking believes that the discovery of a
complete unified theory may not aid the
survival of our species, and may not even
affect our life-style, but that humanity's
deepest desire for knowledge is
justification enough for our continuing
quest. and that our goal is nothing less
than a complete description of the
universe we live in. [5]

Chapter 2: Space and Time

Stephen Hawking talks about how the


Aristotle theory of absolute space came to
an end by the Newton's theory that 'rest'
and 'motion' can be the same state if an
observer sees the event at rest or if he
moves with the same speed as that of the
event. So 'rest' can't be the standard
position. Moreover, Galileo Galilei also
disproves Aristotle theory that heavier
body falls more quickly than the lighter
one just because of its mass. He
experimentally proves it by sliding objects
of different weights, and even concludes
that both these object would fall at same
rate and would reach the bottom at the
same time, unless external force acts on
them. Aristotle and Newton believed in
absolute time. They believed that if an
event is measured using two different
clocks at different state of motion, they'll
have to agree on the same time, if clocks
used are synchronized, which by now we
know it isn't. But the fact that the light
travels with a finite speed was first
explained by the Danish scientist Ole
Rømer, by his observation of Jupiter and
his one of its moon Io. He observed that Io
appeared sometimes quicker and
sometimes later when it revolves around
Jupiter, because the distance between
Earth and Jupiter changes every time
because of their orbital motion around the
sun. The actual propagation of light was
published by James Clerk Maxwell who
told that light travels with a fixed speed.
Later, many argued that light must travel
through a hypothetical fluid called Ether,
which was disproved by Michelson–
Morley experiment that there is nothing
called Ether through which light travels.
Einstein and Poincaré later on argued that
there's no need of ether provided one has
to abandon absolute time. The Special
Theory of Relativity is based on this, that
light travels with a finite speed no matter
what the speed of the observer is.
Moreover, the speed of light is assumed to
be the ultimate speed. Mass and energy
are also related by the famous equation
E=mc^2, and so it would require infinite
energy to get to the speed of light. A new
way of defining a metre using speed of
light is also developed. 'Events' can also
be described by using the light cones, a
space time graphical representation which
restricts what all events are allowed and
what are not based on the past and the
future light cones. The new 4-dimensions
is also described, how different the path is
seen when one changes reference from 3D
to 4D or 3D to 2D. General Theory of
Relativity explains about how path of light
ray is affected by 'gravity' which according
to Einstein is a mere illusion in contrast to
Newton's views. It is space-time curvature
where light moves in a straight path in 4D
which is seen as a curve in 3D. These
straight line paths are Geodesics. Twin
paradox, a part theory of Relativity which
explains that two twins can age differently
if they move at relatively different speeds
or even at different places where
spacetime curvature is different. Special
relativity is based upon arenas of space
and time where events take place whereas
General Relativity is dynamic where force
could change spacetime curvature, which
gives rise to the expanding universe.
Hawking and Roger Penrose worked upon
this and later proved using general
Relativity that if the Universe had a
beginning then it also must have an end.

Chapter 3: The Expanding


Universe
The Big Bang and evolution of the Universe is shown
here. The picture shows the Universe expanding over

time.

In this chapter, Hawking first describes


how physicists and astronomers
calculated the relative distance of stars
from the Earth. In the 18th century, Sir
William Herschel confirmed the positions
and distances of many stars in the night
sky. In 1924, Edwin Hubble discovered a
method to measure the distance using
brightness of the stars. The luminosity,
brightness and distance are related by a
simple mathematical formula. Using all
these, he fairly calculated distances of
nine different galaxies. We live in a spiral
galaxy just like other galaxies containing
vast amount of stars. The stars are very
far away from us, so we only observe their
one characteristic feature, their light. When
this light is passed through a prism, it
gives rise to a spectrum. Every star has its
own spectrum and since each element has
its own unique spectra, we can know a
star's composition. We use thermal
spectra of the stars to know their
temperature. But in 1920, when scientists
were examining spectra of different stars,
they found that some of the characteristic
lines of the star spectrum was shifted
towards the red end of the spectrum. The
implications of this phenomenon was
given by the Doppler effect, and it was
clear that some stars were moving away
from us. So, it was assumed that since
some stars are red shifted, some stars
would also be blue shifted. But when
found, none of them were blue shifted. In
fact, Hubble found that the amount of
redshift is directly proportional to relative
distance. So, it was clear that Universe is
expanding. Despite this the concept of a
static universe persisted until the 20th
century; Einstein was so sure of a static
universe that he developed 'Cosmological
Constant' and introduced 'anti gravity'
forces to persist to the earlier claim.
Moreover, many astronomers also tried to
avoid the face value of General Relativity
and stuck with their static universe except
one Russian physicist Alexander
Friedmann. He made two very simple
assumptions: the universe is identical in
every direction i.e. Homogenity and that
this would be true wherever we look from
i.e. Isotropy. His results showed that the
Universe is non-static. His assumptions
were later proved when 2 physicists at
Bell's laboratory, Arno Penzias and Robert
Wilson found extra microwave radiation
noise not only from the one particular part
of the sky but from everywhere and by
nearly the same amount. Then,
Friedmann's first assumption was proved
as true. At the same time nearly, Robert H.
Dicke and Jim Peebles were also working
on the microwave radiation. They argued
that they should be able to see the glow of
the early universe as microwave
radiations. But, Wilson and Penzias
already did this, so they were awarded with
Noble Prize in 1978. In addition, our place
in the Universe is no exceptional, so we
should see the universe as the same from
any part of space, which proved
Friedmann's second assumption. His work,
though remained largely unknown until
similar models were made by Howard
Robertson and Arthur Walker.

Friedmann's model gave rise to 3 different


types of model of universe. First, the
universe would expand for a given amount
of time and if the expansion rate is less
than the density of the universe(leads to
gravitational attraction), it would ultimately
lead to the collapse of the universe at the
later stage. Secondly, the universe would
expand and at sometime if the expansion
rate and the density of the universe
become equal, it would expand slowly and
stop at infinite time and would lead to
somewhat static universe. Thirdly, the
universe would continue to expand forever
if the density of the universe is less than
the critical amount required to balance the
expansion rate of universe. The first model
depicts the space of universe to be curved
inwards, somewhat earth like structure. In
the second model, the space would lead to
a flat structure, and in the third model
resulted in negative curvature, or saddle
shaped. Even if we calculate, the current
expansion rate is more than the critical
density of the universe including the dark
matter and all the stellar masses. The first
model included the beginning of the
universe in a big-bang from a space of
infinite density and zero volume known as
'singularity', a point where General theory
of Relativity (Friedmann's solutions are
based in it) also breaks down. This
concept of the beginning of time was
against many religious beliefs, so a new
theory was introduced 'Steady state
theory' by Hermann Bondi, Thomas Gold
and Fred Hoyle to tackle the Big bang
theory. Its predictions also matched with
the current Universe structure. But the fact
that radiowave sources near us are far
less than the distant universe and there
were numerous more radio sources than
at present, resulted in failure of this theory
and everybody finally stuck and supported
the big bang theory. Evgeny Lifshitz and
Isaak Markovich Khalatnikov also tried to
avoid the big bang theory but also failed.
Finally, Roger Penrose used light cones
and general Relativity and proved that a
collapsing star could result in a region of
zero size and infinite density and curvature
called a Black Hole, so Hawking and
Penrose proved together that the universe
should have arisen from a singularity
which Hawking himself disproved once
Quantum effects are taken into accounts.

Chapter 4: The Uncertainty


Principle
The uncertainty principle says that the
speed and the position of a particle cannot
be found at the same time. To find where a
particle is, scientists shine light at the
particle. If a high frequency light is used,
the light can find the position more
accurately but the particle's speed will be
unknown (because the light will change
the speed of the particle). If a lower
frequency light is used, the light can find
the speed more accurately but the
particle's position will be unknown. The
uncertainty principle disproved the idea of
a theory that was deterministic, or
something that would predict everything in
the future.
Here is a picture of a light wave.

How light behaves is also talked more


about in this chapter. Some theories say
that light acts like particles even though it
really is made of waves; one theory that
says this is Planck's quantum hypothesis.
A different theory also says that light
waves also act like particles; a theory that
says this is Heisenberg's uncertainty
principle.
Light interference causes many colors to appear.

Light waves have crests and troughs. The


highest point of a wave is the crest, and
the lowest part of the wave is a trough.
Sometimes more than one of these waves
can interfere with each other - the crests
and the troughs line up. This is called light
interference. When light waves interfere
with each other, this can make many
colors. An example of this is the colors in
soap bubbles.
Chapter 5: Elementary
Particles and Forces of Nature

Quarks and other elementary particles are


the topic of this chapter.

Quarks are very small things that make up


everything we see (matter). There are six
different "flavors" of quarks: the up quark,
down quark, strange quark, charmed
quark, bottom quark, and top quark.
Quarks also have three "colors": red, green,
and blue. There are also anti-quarks, which
are the opposite of the regular quarks. In
total, there are 18 different types of regular
quarks, and 18 different types of anti
quarks. Quarks are known as the "building
blocks of matter" because they are the
smallest thing that make up all the matter
in the universe.

A particle of spin 1 needs to be turned around all the


way to look the same again, like this arrow.

All particles (for example, the quarks) have


something called spin. The spin of a
particle shows us what a particle looks
like from different directions. For example,
a particle of spin 0 looks the same from
every direction. A particle of spin 1 looks
different in every direction, unless the
particle is spun completely around (360
degrees). Hawking's example of a particle
of spin 1 is an arrow. A particle of spin two
needs to be turned around halfway (or 180
degrees) to look the same. The example
given in the book is of a double-headed
arrow. There are two groups of particles in
the universe: particles with a spin of 1/2,
and particles with a spin of 0, 1, or 2. All of
these particles follow Pauli's exclusion
principle. Pauli's exclusion principle says
that particles cannot be in the same place
or have the same speed. If Pauli's
exclusion principle did not exist, then
everything in the universe would look the
same, like a roughly uniform and dense
"soup".

This is a proton. It is made up of three quarks. All the


quarks are different colors because of confinement.

Particles with a spin of 0, 1, or 2 move


force from one particle to another. Some
examples of these particles are virtual
gravitons and virtual photons. Virtual
gravitons have a spin of 2 and they
represent the force of gravity. This means
that when gravity affects two things,
gravitons move to and from the two
things. Virtual photons have a spin of 1
and represent electromagnetic forces (or
the force that holds atoms together).

Besides the force of gravity and the


electromagnetic forces, there are weak
and strong nuclear forces. Weak nuclear
forces are the forces that cause
radioactivity, or when matter emits energy.
Weak nuclear force works on particles
with a spin of 1/2. Strong nuclear forces
are the forces that keep the quarks in a
neutron and a proton together, and keeps
the protons and neutrons together in an
atom. The particle that carries the strong
nuclear force is thought to be a gluon. The
gluon is a particle with a spin of 1. The
gluon holds together quarks to form
protons and neutrons. However, the gluon
only holds together quarks that are three
different colors. This makes the end
product have no color. This is called
confinement.

Some scientists have tried to make a


theory that combines the electromagnetic
force, the weak nuclear force, and the
strong nuclear force. This theory is called
a grand unified theory (or a GUT). This
theory tries to explain these forces in one
big unified way or theory.

Chapter 6: Black Holes

A picture of a black hole and how it changes light


around it.

Black holes are talked about in this


chapter. Black holes are stars that have
collapsed into one very small point. This
small point is called a singularity. Black
holes suck things into their center because
they have very strong gravity. Some of the
things it can suck in are light and stars.
Only very large stars, called super-giants,
are big enough to become a black hole.
The star must be one and a half times the
mass of the sun or larger to turn into a
black hole. This number is called the
Chandrasekhar limit. If the mass of a star
is less than the Chandrasekhar limit, it will
not turn into a black hole; instead, it will
turn into a different, smaller type of star.
The boundary of the black hole is called
the event horizon. If something is in the
event horizon, it will never get out of the
black hole.

Black holes can be shaped differently.


Some black holes are perfectly spherical -
like a ball. Other black holes bulge in the
middle. Black holes will be spherical if they
do not rotate. Black holes will bulge in the
middle if they rotate.

Black holes are difficult to find because


they do not let out any light. They can be
found when black holes suck in other
stars. When black holes suck in other
stars, the black hole lets out X-rays, which
can be seen by telescopes.
In this chapter, Hawking talks about his bet
with another scientist, Kip Thorne.
Hawking bet that black holes did not exist,
because he did not want his work on black
holes to be wasted. He lost the bet.

Chapter 7: Black Holes Ain't So


Black

This chapter explains more about black


holes.

Hawking realized that the event horizon of


a black hole could only get bigger, not
smaller. The area of the event horizon of a
black hole gets bigger whenever
something falls into the black hole. He
also realized that when two black holes
combine, the size of the new event horizon
is greater than or equal to the sum of the
event horizons of the two other black
holes. This means that a black hole's event
horizon can never get smaller.

Disorder, also known as entropy, is related


to black holes. There is a scientific law
that has to do with entropy. This law is
called the second law of thermodynamics,
and it says that entropy (or disorder) will
always increase in an isolated system (for
example, the universe). The relation
between the amount of entropy in a black
hole and the size of the black hole's event
horizon was first thought of by a research
student (Jacob Bekenstein) and proven by
Hawking, whose calculations said that
black holes emit radiation. This was
strange, because it was already said that
nothing can escape from a black hole's
event horizon.

This problem was solved when the idea of


pairs of "virtual particles" was thought of.
One of the pair of particles would fall into
the black hole, and the other would
escape. This would look like the black hole
was emitting particles. This idea seemed
strange at first, but many people accepted
it after a while.
Chapter 8: The Origin and Fate
of the Universe

The Big Bang and the evolution of the universe

How the universe started and how it might


end is discussed in this chapter.

Most scientists agree that the universe


started in an expansion called the Big
Bang. The model for this is called the "hot
big bang model". When the universe starts
getting bigger, the things inside of it also
begin to get cooler. When the universe was
first beginning, it was infinitely hot. The
temperature of the universe cooled and
the things inside the universe began to
clump together.

Hawking also discusses how the universe


could have been. For example, if the
universe formed and then collapsed
quickly, there would not be enough time
for life to form. Another example would be
a universe that expanded too quickly. If a
universe expanded too quickly, it would
become almost empty. The idea of many
universes is called the many-worlds
interpretation.

Inflationary models and the idea of a


theory that unifies quantum mechanics
and gravity also are discussed in this
chapter.

Each particle has many histories. This idea


is known as Feynman's theory of sum over
histories. A theory that unifies quantum
mechanics and gravity should have
Feynman's theory in it. To find the chance
that a particle will pass through a point,
the waves of each particle needs to be
added up. These waves happen in
imaginary time. Imaginary numbers, when
multiplied by themselves, make a negative
number. For example, 2i X 2i = -4.

Chapter 9: The Arrow of Time

In this chapter Hawking talks about why


"real time" as humans observe and
experience it (in contrast to the "imaginary
time" in the laws of science) seems to
have a certain direction, notably from the
past towards the future. The things that
give time this property are the arrows of
time.
Firstly, there is the thermodynamic arrow
of time. According to this, starting from
any higher order organized state, the
overall disorderliness in the world always
increases as time passes. This is why we
never see the broken pieces of a cup
gather themselves together to form a
whole cup. Even though human
civilizations have tried to make things
more orderly, the energy dissipated in this
process has created more overall disorder
in the universe.

The second arrow is the psychological


arrow of time. Our subjective sense of
time seems to flow in one direction, which
is why we remember the past and not the
future. Hawking claims that our brain
measures time in a way where disorder
increases in the direction of time. We
never observe it working in the opposite
direction. In other words, the psychological
arrow of time is intertwined with the
thermodynamic arrow of time.

Thirdly there is the cosmological arrow of


time, the direction of time in which our
universe is expanding and not contracting.
Hawking believes that in order for us to
observe and experience the first two
arrows of time, the universe would have to
begin in a very smooth and orderly state.
And then as it expanded, it became more
disorderly. So the thermodynamic arrow
agrees with the cosmological arrow.

However, because of the "no boundary"


proposal for the universe, after a period of
expansion, the universe will probably start
to contract. But it will probably not go
backwards in time to a more smooth,
orderly state. The thermodynamic arrow in
the contracting phase will not be as
strong.

As for why humans experience these three


arrows of time going in the same direction,
Hawking postulates that humans have
been living in the expanding phase of the
universe. He thinks that intelligent life
couldn't exist in the contracting phase of
the universe. Only the expanding phase of
the universe is suitable for intelligent
beings like humans to exist, because it
contains a strong thermodynamic arrow.
Hawking calls this the "weak anthropic
principle".

Chapter 10: The Unification of


Physics

The fundamental objects of string theory are open and


The fundamental objects of string theory are open and
closed strings.

Physicists have come up with partial


theories to describe a limited range of
things, but a complete, unified and
consistent theory which can take into
account all of these partial theories remain
unknown. Hawking is cautiously optimistic
that such a unified theory of the universe
may be found soon. Such a theory must
combine the classical theory of gravity
with the uncertainty principle found in
quantum mechanics. Attempts to do that
have led to the occurrence of absurd
infinitely massed particles or an infinitely
small universe. In 1976, the theory of
"supergravity" was suggested as a
solution. But the calculations to verify the
theory was deemed time-consuming and
thus abandoned.

In 1984, another set of theories called the


"string theories", where basic objects are
not particles but two-dimensional strings,
became popular among physicists. They
were claimed to explain the existence of
certain particles better than supergravity
and other theories. However, according to
string theories, instead of the usual four
space-time dimensions, the universe could
have dozens of them. It is imagined that
humans do not experience the other
dimensions because these are too tightly
curled up. This is due to the "weak
anthropic principle", according to which
intelligent beings like humans cannot exist
in any other way. String theories appear to
allow this situation for certain regions of
the universe, but there may be other
regions of the universe where more than
four dimensions are prominent.
Furthermore, supergravity, p-brane and
string theories all describe different
situations with similar results, as if using
different approximations of the same
theory.
Hawking thus proposes three possibilities:
1) there exists a complete unified theory
that we will eventually find; 2) there are an
infinite number of theories that overlap
and describe the universe more and more
accurately and 3) there is no ultimate
theory. The third possibility has been
sidestepped by acknowledging the limits
set by the uncertainty principle. The
second possibility describes what has
been happening in physical sciences so
far, with increasingly accurate partial
theories. Hawking believes that such
refinement has a limit and that by studying
the very early stages of the universe in a
laboratory setting, it is possible to finally
find a complete unified theory in the 21st
century. Such a theory might not be proven
but would be mathematically consistent.
The predictions of such a basic set of laws
would match our observations. However,
given the complicated nature of realistic
situations, it would only be a first step to a
complete understanding of the events
around us.

Chapter 11: Conclusion

Humans have always wanted to make


sense of the universe and their place in it.
At first, events were considered random
and controlled by human-like emotional
spirits. But in astronomy and in some
other situations, regularities were
observed. With the advancement of the
human civilization in the modern age,
more regularities and laws were
discovered. Laplace suggested at the
beginning of the nineteenth century that
the universe’s structure and evolution
could eventually be precisely explained by
a set of laws. However, the origin of these
laws was left in God’s domain. In the
twentieth century, quantum theory
introduced the uncertainty principle, which
set limits to the predictive accuracy of
laws to be discovered.
The big bang implied by the general theory
of relativity indicates that a creator of the
universe or God has the freedom to
choose the origin and the laws of the
universe. When one combines theory of
relativity with quantum mechanics,
however, a unified and completely self-
contained theory may emerge, in which
God has little or no role to play. So the
search of a unified theory may shed light
on the nature of God. However, most
scientists today are working on the
theories themselves rather than asking
such philosophical questions. On the other
hand, these physical theories are so
mathematical and technical that
philosophers are not discussing them like
they used to do, let alone ordinary people.
Hawking would like to see that eventually
everybody would one day talk about these
theories in order to understand the true
origin and nature of the universe,
accomplishing the ultimate triumph of
human reasoning.

Editions
1988: The first edition included an
introduction by Carl Sagan that tells the
following story: Sagan was in London
for a scientific conference in 1974, and
between sessions he wandered into a
different room, where a larger meeting
was taking place. "I realized that I was
watching an ancient ceremony: the
investiture of new fellows into the Royal
Society, one of the most ancient
scholarly organizations on the planet. In
the front row, a young man in a
wheelchair was, very slowly, signing his
name in a book that bore on its earliest
pages the signature of Isaac Newton...
Stephen Hawking was a legend even
then." In his introduction, Sagan goes on
to add that Hawking is the "worthy
successor" to Newton and Paul Dirac,
both former Lucasian Professors of
Mathematics.[6]
The introduction was removed after the
first edition, as it was copyrighted by
Sagan, rather than by Hawking or the
publisher, and the publisher did not have
the right to reprint it in perpetuity. Hawking
wrote his own introduction for later
editions.

1994, A brief history of time – An


interactive adventure. A CD-Rom with
interactive video material created by S.
W. Hawking, Jim Mervis, and Robit
Hairman (available for Windows 95,
Windows 98, Windows ME, and
Windows XP).[7]
1996, Illustrated, updated and expanded
edition: This hardcover edition
contained full-color illustrations and
photographs to help further explain the
text, as well as the addition of topics
that were not included in the original
book.
1998, Tenth-anniversary edition: It
features the same text as the one
published in 1996, but was also released
in paperback and has only a few
diagrams included. ISBN 0553109537
2005, A Briefer History of Time: a
collaboration with Leonard Mlodinow of
an abridged version of the original book.
It was updated again to address new
issues that had arisen due to further
scientific development. ISBN 0-553-
80436-7

Film
In 1991, Errol Morris directed a
documentary film about Hawking, but
although they share a title, the film is a
biographical study of Hawking, and not a
filmed version of the book.

Opera
The New York's Metropolitan Opera had
commissioned an opera to premiere in
2015–16 based on Hawking's book. It was
to be composed by Osvaldo Golijov with a
libretto by Alberto Manguel in a production
by Robert Lepage.[8] The planned opera
was changed to be about a different
subject and eventually canceled
completely.[9]

See also
Turtles all the way down, a jocular
expression of the infinite regress
problem in cosmology that appears in
Hawking's book.

References
1. A Brief History of Time is based on the
scientific paper J. B. Hartle; S. W. Hawking
(1983). "Wave function of the Universe".
Physical Review D. 28 (12): 2960.
Bibcode:1983PhRvD..28.2960H .
doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.28.2960 .
2. Paris, Natalie (26 April 2007). "Hawking
to experience zero gravity" . The Daily
Telegraph. London.
3. "Hawking's briefer history of time" .
news.bbc.co.uk. 15 October 2001.
Retrieved 2008-08-06.
4. White, Michael and John Gribbin (1992).
Stephen Hawking: a life in science. Viking
Press. ISBN 978-0670840137.
5.
https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.
com/books/98/12/06/specials/hawking-
time.html
6. Hawking, Stephen (1988). A Brief History
of Time. Bantam Books. ISBN 978-0-553-
38016-3.
7. A brief history of time – An interactive
adventure
8. A new Robert Lepage at the Met (in
French)
9. Cooper, Michael (29 November 2016).
"Osvaldo Golijov's New Opera for the Met is
Called Off" . The New York Times.

External links
Photos of the first edition of A Brief
History of Time

Retrieved from
"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?
title=A_Brief_History_of_Time&oldid=872660170"

Last edited 1 day ago by FreeKnowl…

Content is available under CC BY-SA 3.0 unless


otherwise noted.

You might also like