Customer Reviews

Introducing Stephen Hawking

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After picking this up in a bookstore in Chicago, I couldn't stop reading it after I had started. The book combines interviews with Hawking along with biographical information and excellent cartoon illustrations and black & white photos to explain how modern thoughts on physics and black holes were developed. I've used some of the information from this book to teach my high school Physics class about black holes, and I hope to use it more in the future. The book sort of ends without much explanation of the COBE background explorer, but other than that, it's full of essential information presented in a format that is easy and fun to read.

Cartoons, comic book style, sumo wrestlers - all these will from now on be associated with astronomy and quantum theory, thanks to this book. If like me you are just reading for general interest this book will explain it all, but without bogging it down with detail. A good read, and now I feel confident to read Hawkings book 'A brief history of time'.

This book is impressive in the amount and complexity of physics it delivers in an understandable manner. It starts with the physics of Galileo and Newton, moves through relativity and then ends with quantum mechanics. The goal is of course to present the advances in physics made by Stephen Hawking and a combination of cartoons and text is used.
The authors also do not make the major mistake of avoiding equations at all costs; they use them when necessary and explain them well. Combining this with the clear exposition of the very complicated principles of physics and this book is an outstanding contribution to the popular understanding of the life of Hawking and modern physics.

This book has a comic book feel to it which makes it enjoyable, easy to follow, and hard to put down. This book is perfect for visual learners and makes it easy to relate to. Definitely recommend this book for class or just to expand ones own knowledge, its really a great book!!!

McEvoy & Zarate's Introducing Stephen Hawking (ISH) is as clear as clarity gets. I came to it well read in the history of science in general and of mathematics and physics in particular as well as all manner of out-of-date textbooks with all the pain that such reading entails. Though to read is not to comprehend, the bit of light that trickles through is a keen pleasure. Habit being a daunting foe as well as a mightily generous friend, I am slowly but surely clambering onto a seat whence I can read physics and poetry with near equal bewilderment and illiteracy and innumeracy. It helps to love staring at text--even in letters or ideograms that look like bad jokes.

ISH is not only easier and clearer than Paradise Lost or the Iliad, it covers larger ground in a tenth the length of either. The book has nailed in place for me all the primary images from Sig. Galileo to Hawking. Git the book, read it, and you'll experience a similar gratitude to the one I have toward McEvoy & Zarate. And, Hurray for Great Britania for her obsession with Introducing... (I ain't no Brit either. Not by a long shot)

I was a bit reluctant to like this book when I first read it because of its abundance of cartoons that appeared to be quite cheaply drawn. It also belonged to part of a larger series of 'Introducing' books and I'm always reluctant to like those because they always seem to be directed towards making a profit rather than providing good information.

Contrary to my first impressions, the book was actually fairly good and informative. It covers a good part of Stephen Hawking's life as well as some background in fundamentals of physics so you can grasp some of his ideas. Although soem cartoons are completely gratuitous others actually provide extra clarification on the ideas expressed.

The book gives a very broad overview over Stephen Hawking's ideas. Specifically his theories concerning black hole radiation. Some stuff was a bit hard for me to grasp (atleast to understand all the little details was near impossible) but the book illustrates the general ideas very well :)

This is a wonderful, short book about one of the most intelligent scientists of the time. Written in a biographical sense, Hawking's life is well documented as are his accomplishments and contributions to science.

I read this book as a science work, not as a promotional biography.

As popular writings of modern physics go this is a rather good account of modern cosmology. The author has a physics background thus making the science fairly honest. The writing is linear with ample asides to bring the reader up to speed on important concepts. The brevity of the writing bespeaks compatification, not loss.

The problem is that Hawking wants to win the Nobel Prize something fierce. The author is out to lend his support to a fellow Britisher by publishing this unabashed Nobel promo (the closing pages give a summation of why Hawking should win the big one). As far as the cartoony format goes the caricatures seem to be directed at those physicists and religious figures (generally dead) the author wants to relegate to supporting roles to the great one. If you can get around these prejudices you will find a good read.