A Brief history of Time

[carrie]

Stephen Hawking the author has sadly just died and this announcement reminded me of his book. I bought it together with many millions of others, I had hoped that it would explain something of theoretical physics that I could understand. No such luck and I don't think I even read the book to the end. A very clever man and a loss to the world.

[newcastle]

I'm sure you're not alone Carrie! Only a handful of the 10 million or so readers of Stephen Hawking's book will have had any comprehension of the maths and physics involved. Some concepts, such as more than 3 dimensions, are very difficult for the human mind to grasp.

His greatest contribution to theoretical physics, Hawking Radiation, has yet to be observed. But then we've only recently observed gravity waves predicted by Einstein. It was his first step in unifying general relativity with quantum mechanics, in his search for the theory of everything.......a goal which still eludes scientists.

That he contributed so much to theoretical physics while a victim of such a debilitating condition was a feat of human achievement rarely witnessed.

A hero of our time in every sense of the word who probably stimulated an interest in science amongst millions.

[Dusak]

A sad loss of a brilliant thought process. I enjoyed his book immensely, so much so that I reread it.