A Brief History of Time

by 

Stephen Hawking

3 Stars

I found A Brief History of Time to be just a little too brief in many places. Hawking took on the monumental task of writing “a popular book about space and time”, noting that “the basic ideas about the origin and fate of the universe can be stated without mathematics in a form that people without a scientific education can understand.” Unfortunately, what a genius like Hawking thought could be stated in an understandable way sometimes gets lost on a mere mortal like myself. I thought a more in depth discussion of many of the topics would have served much better. On the other hand, the book is well written, witty at many points, offers some very interesting history of the development of modern scientific theory, and is relatively easy to read despite the complex subject matter. It’s a good starting point, but I feel like I need more to really get the point.