A Brief History of Time

A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME

by Stephen Hawking

Over the centuries, mankind has sought to understand our world: how we came to exist, how things work, and where we’re headed. This book gives a brief history of how our scientific theories have evolved over time, so you can understand how human beings have updated our knowledge by making observations, forming theories, then constantly testing, discarding or refining them based on how well our observations matched our predictions. Hawking explains abstract concepts about cosmology (e.g. space, time, black holes, quantum theory) in simple layman terms, so you can quickly get up-to-date on mankind’s biggest scientific discoveries so far.

In this summary, you’ll learn:
• The key scientific laws and theories that govern our understanding of the universe today. These include the general law of relativity (laws of gravity, e=mc2, space-time) and quantum mechanics (the Uncertainty Principle, quarks, elementary particles and antiparticles);
• How our universe was formed, with related concepts like the Big Bang, the expanding universe, singularity events, black holes, and their implications;
• What’s imaginary vs real time, arrows of time, wormholes and why backward time travel is unlikely;
• The insights on the gaps in our scientific knowledge todate and what’s being done to bridge those gaps to arrive at a unified theory of the universe.

Who should read this:
• Scientists, engineers, educators and people working in science and technology.
• Anyone wants to improve their scientific knowledge.