Stephen Hawkings books

[Morgoth]

I would like to hear from our readers who read 'on the shoulder of giants' with regards to 2 other books he wrote:

'A brief history of time' and "The universe in a nutshell",

seeing that these 2 books are pretty similar, one gives a good illustration, but its quite repetitious, both of them goes on about the same theories (must admit I hardly understand many of the theories around black holes and I am not completely convinced about a 11 dimentional gravity or the string theories.).

In any case does anyone know if 'on the shoulder of giants' is on the exact same page, maybe a bit more complicated or is it worth reading if you read the other 2 I mentioned?

 

[Jabberwocky]

brief history is ok, universe in a nutshell lost me when it got to the p-branes. haven`t read on the shoulder of giants

 

[Morgoth]

we hold these truths self evident that all P-brains are created equal

 

[Rkootknir]

I would like to hear from our readers who read 'on the shoulder of giants' with regards to 2 other books he wrote:

'A brief history of time' and "The universe in a nutshell",

seeing that these 2 books are pretty similar, one gives a good illustration, but its quite repetitious, both of them goes on about the same theories (must admit I hardly understand many of the theories around black holes and I am not completely convinced about a 11 dimentional gravity or the string theories.).

In any case does anyone know if 'on the shoulder of giants' is on the exact same page, maybe a bit more complicated or is it worth reading if you read the other 2 I mentioned?

"On the shoulder of giants" isn't really a book written by Hawking. It's a collection of five scientific papers by Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton & Einstein. Hawking only wrote short, two to three page intros for each of the papers.

The papers are quite complicated - with the exception Galileo's Dialogue which is the book that got him accused of heresy. Newton's Principia is especially difficult to understand although the ideas are pretty much the ones you get taught in any calculus or elementary physics class today.

 

[wrathex]

I'm about to read The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene, also a well recommended book on the same topics, have lightly read a Brief history of Time and The universe in a Nutshell.

Brain Greene is a Professor of Mathematics and Physics at Columbia.

The Elegant Universe has few illustrations, but offers the information in a more conceptual format, through anology and metaphors.

It contains 387 pages in small text excluding notes and glossary, I picked it up for R75 secondhand.

I read Quantum Mechanics with the purpose to at least understand the concepts, the physics and mathematics I leave to the experts and don't even try to understand it, as it is beyond my ability to understand anyway.