A Brief History of Time: And Other Essays

A Brief History of Time: And Other Essays

by Stephen Hawking
4.21 (439K)  •  1988

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Spoiler: In this brief but dense video, animation is used to explain why Stephen Hawking was such a celebrated scientist. The video shows what black holes are, what “Hawking radiation” is (particles at the edge of a black hole whose “other halves” are drawn into the black hole while the Hawking particles escape), and how the Big Bang generated from a “singularity.” A singularity, or “a point of infinite density” can be found at the center of a black hole.
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Spoiler: This animated summary focuses on three main ideas culled from the book. One, that theories can never be proven (instead, they are simply models or educated guesses). Two, that time is not fixed, because of the speed of light (time is relative). And three, time can most likely only move forward, for three reasons: time only moves forward thermodynamically; time only moves forward psychologically; (you can’t remember the future), and time only moves forward cosmologically.
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Behind-the-scenes look at the making of “A Brief History” movie
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Spoiler: Calling it “a movie about hope,” filmmaker Errol Morris shares his creative process and some of the difficulties of making a movie about abstract science for a mainstream audience. Morris says he wanted to achieve, as a filmmaker, what Hawking did so well as a writer: that is, to explain complex concepts with accessible stories and everyday images. His initial intention, Morris says, was to explore the relationship between Hawking’s life and his scientific discoveries.

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Stephen Hawking

Other books by Stephen Hawking

4.28 (76K)   •   2018
4.17 (17K)   •   1993
4.18 (25K)   •   2002
4.18 (43K)   •   2001
4.06 (74K)   •   2010

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