A Brief History of Time in the Eyes of Stephen Hawking

“A Brief History of Time” by Stephen Hawking is an enjoyable read written by the mind of a genius.
It is not often that one reads about science in a style that is not oversimplified as commercial journalism or mind-numbingly complex as academic journals. Stephen Hawking previews science as changing and ever-evolving changing, a premise that some students of science dismiss. He asserts in this book that scientists do not know everything, and that when a new theory emerges it dismisses past research in that discipline. He demonstrates humility when he speaks of other researchers’ journeys and how scientists of the past were dismissed and then celebrated again decades later. He says ideas must not be dismissed outright, but often reformulated or finetuned.
The writing is hopeful as it describes humanity’s evolution since the 1900s (in comparison to the centuries before) and how there is so much more yet to come. He lays down several theories, in a step by step simplified manner, on black holes (of course) and gravity, and a possible unified theory of physics.
Hawking mentions Aristotle, Bertrand Russell and Richard Feynman, and presents short biographies of Albert Einstein, Galileo Galilei, and Isaac Newton. He talks about character traits such as Einstein’s championing of peace during the World Wars and Newton’s ‘unpleasant’ personality.
Hawking describes great men of science, the universe at large, and then shifts to an analysis of the atom. This book is proof of Hawking’s genius which reminds us that science and physics are incredibly entertaining ways to explain the world.