Book review: A brief history of time

As a follower of Christ, and also as someone who is generally passionate about physics and has a background in engineering, I really enjoy reading books on cosmology, because personally I find the more I understand how the universe is operating, and its origins and laws, the more it fills me with awe and admiration of how beautiful and powerful God is.

So today, I would like to review a book called “a brief history of time” by Stephen Hawking. Let me start by giving some info about Stephen Hawking:

Professor Stephen Hawkings, a British theoretical physicist, is without doubt one of the most brilliant mind in recent human history. He was also the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, a position previously held by people like Isaac Newtown. His famous research works include the theoretical prediction that black holes can actually emit radiation, now days now as the “Hawking radiation”.

He wrote quite a few famous books about physics and science. From books for the general public such as” the universe in a nutshell”, to the more technical books such as “God created the integers: mathematical breakthroughs that changed history”.


So, what is this book “a brief history of time about? Well, as the title suggests this is a book that introduces the general public to many topics in cosmology such as: black hole, big bang, and light cones. I have to say that this book is quite well written, because Hawking really did manage to write and explain physics and Maths in ways that the general public can understand. Throughout the whole book, the amount of “xyzqed” equations are practically non-existent, except the famous equation by Einstein E=mc^2.

Having said this book talks about subjects in cosmology, essentially this layout of this book follows a very logical progression, I will list them here:

1) Hawking started off by introducing the history of mankind’s research on universe.
2) Then he started to talk about the concept of space and time, and then moved into Einstein’s special theory of relativity and why it is needed for us to understand what space and time is, and how this leads to the mathematical conclusion (from special and general theory of relativity) that the universe, has a beginning and will have an end.
3) With the understanding of space and time, Hawking then started to talk about the expanding universe based on our understanding of space and time, and provided some recorded experimental proofs of an expanding universe, in conjunction with the well know blue-shift and red-shift phenomenon (the Hubble’s law).
4) Hawking then started to talk about the uncertainty principles, and at the end conclude that although we don’t have a unified theory of general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics, but we do know what the shapes of the unified theory should “look like”.
5) Next, the elementary forces and particles of the universe is discussed, and the fascinating subject of “black hole” is discussed, and the fate and the origin of the universe is discussed.
6) Hawking then started to talk about the arrow of time, by invoking the laws of thermodynamics, this is a very useful chapter for people who wish to know more about the arrow of time, and its implications such as why things decay, or why cold things can’t make hot things hotter.
7) Finally, Hawking concluded the book by talking about the unification of physics, and a “theory for everything”.

So yes, this is basically what this book is about. It is short, but gives really good general summary of where we are in terms of the discovery of our universe.

Throughout the book, Hawking shows that he has agnostic view about God. His view on God is probably more similar to Einstein’s view that God reveals himself through the physical laws that governs the universe, but does not intervene with the universe and its events.

As a follower of Christ, I believe that God is the author of everything we know and don’t know, but also God does care and His finger prints are in every pass moments in this universe. When I was reading this book, I couldn’t help but keep thinking, wow how amazing is our God, the creator of space and time, relativity equations, big bang, arrow of time, black holes, elementary particles and forces of nature etc., these are all very mind blowing things that really took my breath away. For me, it always fills me with awe how God can make everything out of nothingness. Just to think of how God can create a singularity that caused the big bang, and how that ties in with the laws of thermodynamics, and the elementary particles and forces so and so forth. It is like everything is created and written so the mechanics of the universe works like a perfectly designed engineering masterpiece that can harbour and nourish life on earth.

Therefore, if you have some interest in cosmology, or are just someone who wishes to see the beautiful mind of God and his design but doesn’t have good background in physics, then this is the book for you. Hawking is agnostic, and in the book he did not attack on any religious concepts of any sort, but simply stated at the end that, if we can find a unified theory of everything, then we can know the mind of God. I don’t want to comment on Hawking’s statement, but however I would like to ask, even if we know the theory of everything, isn’t it more important to know the will of God and His purpose for us in life? I always think after we know the purpose of the creator who made the “theory of everything”, then if we do discover the “theory of everything” one day, this theory would simply show us how beautiful and mighty the creator of everything is, and how we can apply it for the better of the world.

If you want to further reading, then I would also suggest “Just six numbers” by Martin Ree, and “The origin of the universe” by John D. Barrow. If you have good mathematical and physics background, you can also read “Anthropic cosmological principle” by Barrow and Tipler (this book is very hard to find, it took me a long time to locate it).

Book rating: 4.5/5 Strongly recommended