What is Reddit's opinion of
A Brief History of Time?
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18 reviews of this product found across Reddit:
I remember reading A Brief History of Time while in middle school. I picked it up out of the public library on a whim. I was surprised at how easy of a read it was for a topic that is so complex. It was at that point I understood that the most complex topics in human history were easy to understand at a high level if explained simply, that the knowledge was easily accessible to someone like me.
It's one of the few books that I can point to that I can say legitimately changed my life.
It is a small case filled with fiddly little bits which work in concert to differentiate between right now, while ago, and in a little bit.
A higher level explanation can be found within the pages of: https://smile.amazon.com/Brief-History-Time-Stephen-Hawking/dp/0553380168
Stephen Hawking - A Brief History of Time
A landmark volume in science writing by one of the great minds of our time, Stephen Hawking’s book explores such profound questions as: How did the universe begin—and what made its start possible? Does time always flow forward? Is the universe unending—or are there boundaries? Are there other dimensions in space? What will happen when it all ends?
> I also know a bit of spirituality or what i call it unexplained physics
Be wary of the supernatural -- that stuff is fake. If a claim does not have adequate evidence to support its hypothesis and cannot be peer-reviewed by the scientific community through an academic study or paper, then you should stay away. You should only listen to people who are qualified with a legitimate background in math and physics. This field is filled with so much conspiratorial or fringe bullshit that you need to be really careful about what type of things you are reading or watching.
That being said, a very great starting book for anyone truly interested in cosmology or astrophysics would be Stephen Hawking's <em>A Brief History of Time</em>.
YouTube channels like PBS Spacetime are great, but it's very important that you read books as well. This subject matter can be very complicated and dense and you need to be capable of reading and digesting long-form writing. Books are also really get references that you can highlight, annotate, or refer back to at any time. I personally did not enjoy reading until I was about your age. I picked up some books about space and it changed my life.
This is the cover one the one I have so I think it's safe to assume this is the right one
The monkey was right about humans not being perfect.
The only space for opinion is pre-Big Bang, everything else is scientific and mathematical fact, and not even the creation of the universe required a God, and that has been proven mathematically.
I appreciate that you are using religion and philosophy to make the world a better place.
I respect your vision of a world better for your fellow humans.
You would be a good person for that, even without life after death or magical fingers reaching out to change reality.
I would highly recommend Stephen Hawking's <em>A Brief History of Time</em>. It goes into some detail about quantum mechanics, and gets into black holes some. But be warned: Despite being toned down, it is still a pretty hard read, and you will find yourself going back to re read things a lot.
For a documentary, you could probably google one and look for the one with the best ratings. I remember watching one a few years ago, but I can't find it.
There was recently a revision to Stephen Hawking's: A Brief History In Time and it does a really good job of laying out some of the construction behind the biggest phenomenons in space without getting to complex conceptually. Definitely recommend it for dipping your toes in the water so to speak.
http://www.amazon.com/Brief-History-Time-Stephen-Hawking/dp/0553380168
A Brief History of Time made me brain hurt but was a fascinating read. If you do read it, I recommend taking it in in 1 chapter segments.
Reminds me of the way once I attempted to explain the possibility of a >3D universe literally encompassing the concepts described in Hawking's "turtles all the way down" anecdote.
It involved diagrams of hyper-turtles and everything. Most of my effort went into making sure that every turtle in my diagram looked ridiculously happy.
EDIT: I was also drunk at the time these events took place :D
I know this is a little late in the thread, but here it is.
Ok, hear me out. This is my theory for a creator, not the bible's God, not Jesus Christ, just A creator. I came upon this theory while reading A Brief History of Time
It is my belief that the universe is too perfect to exist as an accident; the conditions at the big bang too perfect, as the only way that this universe can exist. This was described by Stephen Hawking way better than I can manage, so I'll leave that up to you.
I therefore submit that a being of infinite, or near-infinite, energy, created all matter in the universe. It simply traded energy for mass; E=mc^2. As a result, there's this shit ton of mass we now exist in.
That's all.
"We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology." - Carl Sagan
Do Stephen a solid and read A Brief History of Time. And never forget the importance of knowledge. The Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan is another great one.
RIP Stephen Hawking, one of the truest niggas who ever walked the face of the earth.
Of course! :)
Here are a few of my favorite youtube channels that cover our universe.
These guys do a good job of giving excellent and creditable facts while keeping the video short and sweet.
https://www.youtube.com/user/scishowspace
This channel covers more than just space, but again they give good facts while still keeping the videos not too lengthy.
https://www.youtube.com/user/Kurzgesagt
And of course, nothing gets more credibility than the big guys themselves, NASA. These videos are a bit long, but are just loaded with a ton of real world space Q&A's.
https://www.youtube.com/user/NASAtelevision/videos
The few magazines I have lying around my house right now are all related to space, and they are a great read for any of my guests! Heres a link for the planetary society (main source of my reading material) http://planetary.org/
and here are a few books that every curious mind should take a good long glance at when it comes to our universe.
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/pale-blue-dot-carl-sagan/1103141155
https://www.amazon.com/Brief-History-Time-Stephen-Hawking/dp/0553380168/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
(this one is a MUST READ!)---> https://www.amazon.com/Science-Interstellar-Kip-Thorne/dp/0393351378
The main podcast I listen to is Star Talk with Neil DeGrasse Tyson. He has a plethora of different guests on at all times talking about new and fascinating topics. Here's a link for his show
https://www.startalkradio.net/
And when it comes to articles, most of them come from Reddit! I am subscribed to a ton of different space related subreddits which post countless numbers of interesting articles all the time. Here is a small list just to name a few
r/space r/astronomy r/astrophysics r/astrophotography r/science r/spaceporn
I hope this helps!
There are some amazing answers above me Calamitizer's being exeptional in my opinion but I thought I would try my hand at answering.
Given your discussion of black holes I want to point out that a black hole and other singularities are the ultimate barrier, the smallest 'point'. A Schwarzschild black hole exists theoretically as a point surrounded by an event horizon. The event horizon is what you would actually see and it would appear much larger, however this event horizon is just a visible boundary, it is the radius (from the black hole) at which the escape velocity is greater than the speed of light.
If you haven't read it A Brief History of time is a great book and explains black holes and their functioning in great detail.
I mean, this is kind of a poorly cobbled-together mish-mash of a few theories. The Big Bang, the big crunch, the concept of the observable universe vs the actual universe. Most of it is covered pretty well in A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking. I recommend starting there.
>we can imagine other laws of physics, and could imagine a world in which different laws of physics existed
And that effort would yield just as much fruit as imagining a god - that is, none. If it requires your imagination to bring it into existence then it necessarily does not exist. [I'm trying to play on people's misunderstanding of existence - only extants exist, nothing else does. If you can only talk about it in an imaginary sense, it isn't an extant."
Brief History of Time is an approachable book that starts at the basics of that question.
Otherwise, just look at the scientific method and its necessary underlying axioms. If you cannot possibly have experimentally verifiable evidence of something, it effectively does not exist. In order for a law of physics to be a law, there must be no exceptions. If you can look into another universe where gravity is always repulsive, then it is not a law of physics as there is an exception.
<em>A Brief History of Time</em> by Stephen Hawking gives one of the best explanations of relativity and <em>The Elegant Universe</em> by Brain Greene is an excellent guide to string theory.
>I obviously proved that they are not.
Really. Better call up Stephen Hawking and tell him.
Or maybe just read his book, A Brief History of Time, and learn something. Ha, wait, you obviously can't read, better find you the audio books.
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