The movie about Stephen Hawking’s ideas from his book titled the same and abut his life. A Brief History of Time attempts to explain a range of subjects in cosmology, including the Big Bang, black holes, light cones and superstring theory, to the nonspecialist reader. Its main goal is to give an overview of the subject but, unusual for a popular science book, it also attempts to explain some complex mathematics.

The author notes that an editor warned him that for every equation in the book the readership would be halved, hence it includes only a single equation: E = mc². In addition to Hawking’s abstinence from equations, the book also simplifies matters by means of illustrations throughout the text, depicting complex models and diagrams.

The book is considered by many to be an “unread bestseller”, which is a book many people own but few have finished.

I really do like the idea to address such an exciting subject to non mathematicians. The choice of topics is well balanced and gives you an interesting introduction into the modern view of our universe. In particular the introduction of sometimes contradictory models explain how physics works the evolution of ideas.