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The basic premise of the book can be put simply as follows:Hawking was throughout his career a very good theoretical physicist, and wrote a number of great papers. There are also many other very good theoretical physicists and scientists who have written a number of great papers. Hawking was the biggest scientific celebrity since Einstein, and all those other scientists (with a few exceptions) aren't even in the ballpark - as a small example, just consider Hawking as compared to the other three
A biography that purports to talk about Hawking the real man by a friend Charles Seife it’s not a bad biography but still distant because Hawking couldn’t communicate well. Author seems to know most of his scientific work in early days and his first family whom he interviews. His later years is more hazy. I found it pleasant even though I still feel detached from Hawking.
Two physics books back to back. My mind feels kind of, well, stretched. I'm not a big biography reader, so for me to read a biography from cover to cover, and in 2 days at that, it has to be pretty engrossing. This really captured Hawking the person. It felt well researched, and the physics part was smoothly integrated. I especially liked the tone of the narrator: direct but gentle. The device of telling the story in reverse chronological order worked, most of the time, and was especially powerf...
I received this book as an advance copy. Thank youI enjoyed this book and find Stephen Hawking a fascinating person. I will be quite honest though, there were many sections that I had to skim over simply because I don't have enough science background to truly appreciate some sections in the book. For example: Here is one paragraph, "The geometric properties of Einsteinian, Lorentzian spacetime are very different from those of the ordinary, Euclidean space that we're used to. The formula to measu...
First of all , Thank you ! Netgally , for providing this book. Let me start with this, Steven Hawking is a scientific maverick in physics World. Mind like his comes in to existence once in a century. Being a Physics graduate, I was gravitated towards him from my early days. After reading his Pop-Science books , I became fascinated with his works. Meanwhile in my study I became gradually articulated with mathematical skills. Equipped with that , I started reading his scientific papers and started...
A VERY technical (discussions of black holes and supernovas, among other things cosmic) and titillating biography of the late celebrity scientist Stephen Hawking. The book titillates thanks to Seife's warts-and-all descriptions of Hawking's messy yet eventful personal life. Throughout his existence, Hawking attracted and alienated just about everyone he interacted with -- academic colleagues, fellow scientists, even his own family -- with tremendous flair. This despite his indescribable impairme...
I thoroughly enjoyed this one. I would have said that I knew a decent amount about Hawking before I read this but after reading it, it's clear to me that all I knew was the crafted public image. It was beyond interesting to see the ways in which the "real" man was either actively hidden or buried away. A bit of the science was slightly dense but Seife seemed to do the best job he could in conveying it in a way for any layman to better understand. It was an objective look at a man who was both ha...
Stephen has never been politically correct.—Kip ThorneWhen my children were young, I missed not being able to play with them physically.—Stephen HawkingFinally, I said, “I figured it out, why you have all these pictures of Marilyn Monroe on the wall. Like you, she was a person appreciated for her body and not necessarily her mind.” And he gave me this really crazy look, like, “What the fuck are you saying, Mr. Morris?” He gave me this crazy look, and then finally, there’s a click, and he says, “...
Hawking Hawking provides a fascinating and multi-faceted portrayal of one of the legends of our time. As one who grew up in the 90'/00's with a love of STEM, Stephen Hawking seemed like an exiled king, a man of prestige and influence but who was lacking a kingdom to rule. I knew of his contributions to black hole theories decades before I was born, and I had (and read) The Brief History of Time, but beyond that I didn't really know who he was beyond the iconic pictures of him in a wheelchair or
The author is obviously jealous of hawking. Hawking was a genius and should be seen in that light. I did not appreciate how Seife ripped apart Hawking.
Charles Seife looks at Hawking, as Hawking looked at the Universe - backward in time. A homage to Hawking and his phD thesis. At times critical of his contributions to science or his general attitude to people in life makes this a biography worthwhile reading. Of course, similar like Isaacson's biography on Einstein, expect to be overwhelmed with some of the theoretical physics in the book. Total forgiveness to the author on that one, as you cannot tell Hawking's story without it. It is neither
Judging by the title, I half expected this to be some sort of tabloid takedown of Hawking’s legitimacy as a relevant and important cosmologist. I was wrong. If anything, ‘Hawking Hawking’ is a biographical celebration of one of the most recognizable scientists of the 20th Century. “…the vast majority of people who admired Hawking knew little about what he had done to deserve his reputation.” (pg 4)Hawking’s Big Three1. As a physicist, Hawking’s scientific legacy really began with his PhD thesis....
I received a free electronic ARC of this biography from Netgalley, Charles Seife, and Perseus Books - Basic Books. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me. I have read Hawking Hawking of my own volition, and this review reflects my honest opinion of this work. This book is filled with myriad facts and events taking place during the lifetime of Steven Hawking. It doesn't, however, include the most important gift Hawking gave to us. There hasn't been a challenge I or my children have face...
Stephen Hawking was more than his public image. It is wrong to think he was a genius: after all, he didn't even get the Nobel prize. These appear to be the premises of this book. As a reader, I feel heavily undermined by the premise that I don't understand that public image isn't the whole person. Of course people have sides we don't know about - even the ones we live with. And so what if he did not get the Nobel? Most scientists don't even if they do genius work. Science is about curiosity, try...
A one-dimensional collection of tabloid-level reporting about Stephen Hawking with a single thing in common: being negative. The author's theory is that Hawking was no genius, using the unattainable standard set by Einstein to measure against - a standard no one else in physics and perhaps all of science since Leonardo (who never published) has ever attained. Written by a professor of journalism whose last four books were about deception and wishful thinking, the book attempts to debunk a belove...
An excellent biography of Stephen Hawking. The author cleverly uses a reverse chronology, starting from his death and working backwards with each chapter covering periods of about five years. It mixes his personal life with his professional life, showing how one affected the other through the years. The exposition of the physics surrounding Hawking's work from relativity to quantum mechanics to black holes is done extremely well. The author shows that after age 40, with his best work behind him,...
Given that the subtitle of this book is "The Selling of a Scientific Celebrity," I expected that to be the focus of this book. In fact, that's just a small portion of it. This is a long, thorough biography covering Hawking's life and work. It's a fascinating tale, honest and compassionate, which leaves the reader with a fuller understanding of Hawking's science and his humanity. I highly recommend it. Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.
I challenged myself to read a biography for once, and I am surly glad I have picked up this one. Contrary to what is suggested in the summary, Seife does not claim that Stephen Hawking did not make a difference in the world of physics and cosmetology, he instead slowly disconnects the public persona of Hawking from the personal one, admirable and brilliant still.The biography is written backwards in time, which works wonderfully when talking about Stephen's personal life and in understanding how...
This is a rather disappointing bio of Hawking by Charles Seife. Some of the details of Hawking's personal life were known, although they were rarely publicized. Hawking's books were popular in large part because of who he was, rather than their subject matter. So it was important that the Hawking persona was carefully managed and nurtured. The details of Hawking's personal life are not that salacious: he visited a sex club in a wheelchair one time, he had an affair with his nurse (but his wife a...
Whew, there is a fair amount of physics in this biography, and that is not an easy read for this reader. I don't know that I really understand singularities and event horizon, but here I am. Physics is a gas, man (no, its not). This book is presented in reverse chronological order, I suppose a nod to the unfolding of the universe and spacetime; far more is described in the 1980's and onward, compared to Hawking's early life. Hawkings was a celebrity scientist, an image he cultivated and enjoyed,...