Customer Reviews

Stephen Hawking's Life Works: The Cambridge Lectures

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To come to this review, you are obviously interested in either the work that Stephen Hawking does or are interested in Stephen Hawking the man. As such you are already somewhat familiar with the theories of General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics and understand the physical handicap that afflicts the body of this great mind. The "Complete Works Of Stephen Hawking", The Cambridge Unabridged Edition, consists of seven lectures on four audio tapes read by the author himself using a voice synthesizer machine which must be used to overcome the limitations that ALS has put upon his speech. It is ironic that this great mind is sinking within the event horizon of a communication black hole due to the disease. Despite this fact, Stephen is able to deliver a masterful presentation of his life's work in astrophysics, cosmology, and astronomy. His presentation is personal as well as informative and is peppered throughout with philosophy, academic humor, and personal insights. It does take some time to get used to the sound of his synthesized voice. Often it sounds robotic, alien, staccato, and certain phrases have a haunting Gregorian chant rhythm to them. I noticed that in a "Brief History Of Time", the words of the text are read by the famous British radio talk personality Michael Jackson. This is definitely a work that needs to be played over and over again stopping to study it along the way. I first listened to it on my 1 hour 1 way car trips to work but plan to listen to it again this summer under the stars at the campgrounds near the glow of an open fire. The tape consists of the following seven lectures (1) Ideas About the History of the Universe, (2) The Big Bang, (3) Black Holes , (4) Quantum Mechanics, (5) Origin of the Universe, (6) The Past and the Future, and (7) The Unified Theory . Now techies that should really wet your whistle! The tapes are a great value at the price. If you are a student of the subjects covered, have a philosophical interest in finding where science and God meet face to face, or just want to enjoy the triumph of human spirit over adversity, then these tapes are a must hear for you. In summary, I believe that after experiencing these tapes you'll come to the same conclusion that I made that Stephen Hawking is an example of how the glory of God and His majestic works can be made manifest in the form of one of His weakest vessels.

I loved these tapes and have converted them to digital format. To bad they are not offered that way.

This is quite a phenominal book. Prof. Hawking really translates all that mathematical stuff to something even the layman can understand. Its was hard to put down. However some of the lectors have are the same things as a few of the chapters in his other book A brief history of time.