A Brief History of Time
A Brief History of Time
A Brief History of Time
Time
Page issues
26 KB
Language English
Subject Cosmology
ISBN 978-0-553-10953-5
OCLC 39256652
Dewey Decimal 523.1 21
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.
time.
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.
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
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