2025 Reading Challenge discussion

This month we will be reading A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking

In the ten years since its publication in 1988, Stephen Hawking's classic work has become a landmark volume in scientific writing, with more than nine million copies in forty languages sold worldwide. That edition was on the cutting edge of what was then known about the origins and nature of the universe. But the intervening years have seen extraordinary advances in the technology of observing both the micro- and the macrocosmic worlds. These observations have confirmed many of Professor Hawking's theoretical predictions in the first edition of his book, including the recent discoveries of the Cosmic Background Explorer satellite (COBE), which probed back in time to within 300,000 years of the universe's beginning and revealed wrinkles in the fabric of space-time that he had projected. Eager to bring to his original text the new knowledge revealed by these observations, as well as his own recent research, Professor Hawking has prepared a new introduction to the book, written an entirely new chapter on wormholes and time travel, and updated the chapters throughout.

Randy will lead our discussion this month, thank you!

I'm in for the read. I read this book a while ago when it first came out and I enjoyed it although I remember it got pretty heavy around the midpoint. For a short book there's a lot of big ideas inside!

Winter, if no one else wants to lead the discussion I can help out.

I already started! I needed a next audio book and this was at the library.

Randy wrote: "I'm in for the read. I read this book a while ago when it first came out and I enjoyed it although I remember it got pretty heavy around the midpoint. For a short book there's a lot of big ideas in..."

That would be great Randy! Should I set you up?

Winter wrote: "That would be great Randy! Should I set you up?"

Sure, go right ahead Winter. :-)

Oh wow, I would love to join you guys in September. I just bought this book a couple of weeks ago and am looking forward to reading it!

Harshmi wrote: "Oh wow, I would love to join you guys in September. I just bought this book a couple of weeks ago and am looking forward to reading it!"

Sounds great! Please do.

Wow! This is really not my type of book, but everyone is making me really excited to read it....!!!!

:)

Great! Who else is joining us? And let us know if you've read the book before or not.

Just bought my copy! This one has been on my ‘want to read’ list for a while now and this has pushed me to actually start it! Excited to read it!

I'm going to join too. I'll start it once I finish my current read. Never read it before and wasn't really planning to since physics is not really my thing, but I've been branching out in my non-fiction lately and it's fairly short, so why not?

Count me in. This has been on my “to read” shelf for a while.

Nice! Welcome everyone! This feels like a "back to school" book in a way, so reading it in September is great timing.

Randy wrote: "Winter wrote: "That would be great Randy! Should I set you up?"

Sure, go right ahead Winter. :-)"

A little bit late because of vacation, but now it's fixed ^^

If anyone is looking for something to get them into the right mood to read this month's selection, try this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfcC6...

Stephen Hawking singing The Galaxy Song by Monty Python

Hello, everyone!

I have a special affect for this book. I read it on my last year of high school, and was the final push to go for physics as my major in college. Now, I am finishing my PhD in physics while working at CERN! Besides this very personal reason, I like the book because I believe science has to be accessible to everyone. The math and complications can be left for the scientists, but that is ok. We can all appreciate painting and reading, without necessarily getting into color theory or writing methods! Closing that gap between science and non-scientist people is the key for our society and for the future discoveries!

That being said, I know having a discussion about this book could be complicated, but I would be happy to help with any question or concern related to the subjects in the book, or physics in general.

Happy reading, everyone!

Hello Carlos, what a wonderful testament to this book and to the power of reading! All the best as you complete your PhD.

I had a hard time with this book a lot of the concepts were over my head, but I did appreciate some of the humor he had and that as a scientist he could admit when his ideas might be incorrect. The things that the scientist are trying to predict are things that are going to be millions of years in the future.