Ratings32
Average rating4.2
In the years since the publication of Hawking's A Brief History of Time, readers have repeatedly told Hawking of their great difficulty in understanding some of the book's most important concepts. This is the reason for A Briefer History: his wish to make its content more accessible to readers--as well as to bring it up-to-date with the latest scientific observations and findings. Purely technical concepts, such as the mathematics of chaotic boundary conditions, are gone. Conversely, subjects of wide interest that have now been given entire chapters of their own, including relativity, curved space, and quantum theory. This reorganization has allowed the authors to expand areas of recent progress, from string theory to exciting developments in the search for a unified theory of all the forces of physics.--From publisher description.
Reviews with the most likes.
I read this in order to compare to A Brief History of Time, thinking this might be a better recommendation for most people. Both books felt pretty much the same to me (although I didn't read them back to back).
I was particularly interested in the presence of more diagrams. My purely scientific thoughts on those, however, were “meh”. It felt like an excuse to advertise “color pictures!” without actually including anything of value.
I'd stick with the original, which I do recommend.