So for the second time in my life, I read this book by Stephen Hawking.
Before I go on with this particular book review, let me make one thing clear: I am not a scientist, and my understanding of the material was limited at best. The first time that I read this book was a number of years ago, and I might have understood or absorbed perhaps 15-20% of it. This time was a little bit better, but my understanding still felt limited to, at best, perhaps 35-40% of it.
Maybe.
Maybe even less, admittedly.
Still, Stephen Hawking was most likely the leading scientist of my lifetime. So I have attempted to read a couple of his books at different times of my life. That said, I will not pretend to have a deeper understanding than I really did, or give myself credit which is undeserved. This book review will be my best attempt to review the book and what I got from it. However, if you are looking for a thorough book summary, or an intelligent summary of what Hawking writes in this book, you might want to look elsewhere, admittedly. For I am not qualified to provide such a summary.
Just wanted to give fair warning.
Now, let me begin this attempt to review this difficult book.
First of all, it is broken up into seven different sections, which are called lectures. The first lecture was a historical lecture about the ideas of our universe over time, starting with Aristotle's observations that the world was likely round. This was the part which I "got" and enjoyed the most. Truly fascinating stuff, just in these first few pages.
After that, it gets a bit more involved. For as human understanding of the universe expands, it becomes necessary to explain how it expanded, which means expanding on ideas of people who made earlier discoveries. Of course, this is how our collective body of knowledge does expand. As Hawking reminds us, Sir Isaac Newton himself suggested that this process was itself quite like "standing on the shoulders of giants."
After that, we truly get into some of the specifics, particularly regarding black holes and, eventually, to the nature and likely patterns that potentially reveal the origins of the universe. These are the parts that get a bit tough to follow, or at least were for me. Yet, it is fascinating stuff, and Hawking is not talking down to his audience. The reader will feel engaged, and the revelations, if they come, are quite fascinating and exciting.
Still, the part which I "got" tended to be, far and away, the earliest part of the book. In other words, the history of ideas of our universe, and how these expanded historically. It starts out seemingly as purely a history of some scientific advances. This itself was fascinating to me, in a similar way to Bill Bryson's Short History of Nearly Everything," which attempts to document the historical scientific discoveries and advances over the course of all of human history. You can see my review of that book by clicking on the link below. It might sound overly ambitious, yet that book, which I highly recommend, actually is perfect for people like me, which is to say intelligent people who might not necessarily have a strong scientific mind, even though it is extremely fascinating. Yes, Bryson's book is accessible and interesting, and you likely will not feel overly intimidated or lost at any point during the reading. The first part of this book by Hawking feels like that. It is well-written and accessible, and thus quite fascinating.
Obviously, this book in particular focuses on astronomy, and the historical understanding of our Earth and the universe more generally. So the reader probably will already be familiar with some of these things, like Copernicus finding that the Solar System does not revolve around the Earth, and proposing a heliocentric theory. How others, like Kepler and Galileo, later on expanded on this theory with their own advances. In time, this theory came to be accepted, despite some infamous opposition by the Church. After all, it is difficult to argue with, although that does not stop some people even in this modern day to argue against it, regardless of whether or not they are actually qualified to do so.
As human understanding of science, and of our world and this universe, expanded in time, things begin to get quite a bit more complicated. That is where this book begins to grow more challenging, once it expands on specific theories.
Yet to his credit, Hawking never feels like he is talking down to the reader. Never do you get the feeling that he is trying to show off an obviously superior intellect. He keeps it simple, more or less focusing on the generalities of the theories. Also, he describes the ramifications, and why some of the possibilities of these theories are so exciting. This is what makes this book enjoyable to read, even when my own understanding is, again, limited. I felt relatively close to having a deeper understanding of what he is talking about, especially on this second reading.
Hawking mentioned how understanding the depths of human knowledge has grown virtually impossible since the time of Newton, because of all of the expansions in our collective body of knowledge over the centuries, in literally every field. As an illustration of this, he reminds the reader that the leading philosopher of the 20th century, Wittgenstein, had once claimed that philosophy was a fraction of what it once was, and that "all that was left for philosophy was the study of language."
What a letdown this is, Hawking suggests. Hard to argue.
Yet, we should keep our intellectual curiosity open and alive. He feels that the questions of why there is a universe should not be restricted merely to specialists in certain fields, like scientists and philosophers, but to ordinary people as well. Then, he sums it up with this sentence to end the book, which opens exciting possibilities:
"If we do find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason—for then we would truly know the mind of God."
All in all, a very good read. One that will likely pique the reader's intellectual curiosity, even if - like me - your ability to fully understand the stars and black holes and all of this stuff may be limited. There is a reason why these books by Hawking garnered so much attention. Pick up a copy and give it a read and enjoy.
Highly recommended.
Book Review: A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson, Monday, June 27, 2022:
https://charbor74.blogspot.com/2022/06/book-review-short-history-of-nearly.html
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