If you like science fiction, reading about the science behind the black holes, time warps, dark matter, and superstrings will add a layer of enjoyment to your reading. But where should you start? Should you buy Kaku’s brilliant graduate-level textbook on M-space and dive right in? Rather, I recommend A Briefer History of Time, by the wheelchair-bound rock star of modern physics for the layman, Stephen W. Hawking.
If you just want to read about science fiction, try these two articles here and here.
If you want to read more about characterization in fiction, try this article.
The first physics superstar who anyone thinks of is English physicist Stephen W. Hawking, author of the blockbuster book A Brief History of Time. Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis has impaired him physically, so that now he is in a wheelchair and communicates with the help of a computer and voice synthesizer. Thus, the public romanticizes him as the closest extant thing to a disembodied brain, in that he must think wonderful thoughts of physics all day, locked inside his unresponsive body, and then laboriously communicate them to us mere mortals.
In reality, he has three children and a grandchild, not to mention a tumultuous personal life, and uses his marvelous computer-generated voice synthesizer to write and lecture. His biography on his website does not mention his ALS but does detail his papers, scientific achievements, and publications. A separate page on his site discusses his struggles with ALS.
His first book, A Brief History of Time, is wonderful and has sold through 40-some editions each in the States and the UK. It is one of the most accessible physics books I’ve read. I heard that it was one of the most-started and least-finished books, but I can’t believe it. It’s so fun to read, I can’t imagine anyone setting it down.
He’s also published several more recent books, including The Universe in a Nutshell, which has many friendly illustrations, and A Briefer History of Time, an updated version of his original classic. (The title brings to mind an old science joke about a book titled, An Even Briefer History of Time: “Bang!”)
This new version, A Briefer History of Time, written with science writer Leonard Mlodinow, is both an update and a dumb-down. For those who were stymied by the one equation in A Brief History of Time (Einstein’s famous E=mc squared,) this book provides yet more hand-waving.
However, it also includes more recent data from observational astronomy (actually looking through a telescope, usually with a computer doing the looking, and quantifying what you see there,) and new particle physics discoveries to approach a Grand Unifying Theory (GUT), which has been Hawking’s (and many other physicists’) life ambition.
If you’re already tired of physics and want to read a novel with an underpinning of neuroscience and not even one equation, try this book.
In general, if you’ve read A Brief History, and if you’ve stayed current with some other science books written for the lay audience, such as from Michio Kaku, Brian Greene, or Kip Thorne, there’s little reason to buy this book.
If you don’t know who those guys are, read this blog post.
However, if you’re just starting out in your quest to understand modern physics, A Briefer History of Time is an excellent book with which to start.
Author of RABID: A Novel, coming in April, 2007
