A Brief History of Time

From Free net encyclopedia

Image:BriefHistoryTime.jpg A Brief History of Time is a popular science book written by Professor Stephen Hawking and first published in 1988. It rapidly became a best-seller, and had sold 9 million copies by 2002. It was also on the London Sunday Times best-seller list for a record breaking 237 weeksTemplate:Mn.

It attempts to explain a range of subjects in cosmology, including the Big Bang, black holes, light cones and superstring theory, to the nonspecialist reader. Its main goal is to give an overview of the subject but, unusually for a popular science book, it also attempts to explain some complex mathematics.

The author notes that for every equation in the book the readership will be halved, hence it includes only a single equation: E=mc².

In addition to Hawking's abstinence from equations, the book also simplifies matters by means of illustrations throughout the text, depicting complex models and diagrams.

The book is considered by many to be an "unread bestseller" [1] which is a book many people own but few have finished.

There is also a documentary by the same name, directed by Errol Morris released in 1991.

1 Editions
2 In films
3 References
4 Online Version

[edit]

Editions

1996 - Illustrated, updated and expanded edition. This hardbound 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 - The Tenth Anniversary Edition - Is the same text as the previous published in 1996, but was also released in paperback and has only a few diagrams included.

September of 2005 saw the release of A Briefer History of Time (a collaboration with Leonard Mlodinow), which is an abridged version of the original book. It was updated again to address new issues that have arisen due to further scientific development.

[edit]

In films

In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Ian Brown (lead singer of the Stone Roses) is seen sitting in the Leaky Cauldron reading this book. This same person is also reading the book in the Leaky Cauldron in Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone.
The book makes an appearance in the film Donnie Darko when Donnie's teacher shows him the book.

[edit]