Book Review: A Briefer History of Time
By: Nino Sandil
Title: A Briefer History of Time
Authors: Stephen Hawking with Leonard Mlodinow
Publisher: Bantam Press (2005)
Today, allow me to share some insights in the field of science through reviewing few portions of a book authored by one of the famous scientists of our time, Stephen Hawking. At the outset, I do not claim this review will be similar to the underlying structure of the usual book review. Rather, I simply picked two topics covered in this book that caught my interest and share them with you – the reader – who may be presently pondering on what topic you may want to choose for your research paper, thesis or dissertation writing. If you’re a science education (esp. physics) major, I hope this review will be of interest to you even a little.
Let me start with the existing problem concerning the theory of the universe. Chapter 3 (pp. 13 to 18) of this book primarily discussed the lack of a complete unified theory of the universe. Accordingly, in the present time, there are two partial theories that dominate in describing our universe: (1) the general theory of relativity and (2) quantum mechanics. These two, however, are said to be incompatible with each other. Like in the field of political science or foreign policy, for example, if you are an advocate of the theory of realism, it will be hard for you to be an advocate of the pluralism model at the same time. This is so because each theory simply holds a view of the world or the universe in completely different ways. The general theory of relativity focuses its description on gravity and the large-scale structure of the universe, while quantum mechanics focuses its description on the extremely small-scales – pretty much like what you study in nanotechnology – the subatomic particles or quarks. The two are incompatible because they attempt to explain the nature of the universe into separate and distinct ways.
So, right now, the goal of the scientific community is to come up with a new theory that will unify the two previously mentioned theories. In this book, Hawking aptly used the phrase “quantum theory of gravity”. Obviously, at the moment, it’s just a phrase without the appropriate contents because it is still to be discovered. This is certainly a knowledge gap that Parscians who intend or who are now taking science (esp. physics) major is suggested to delve into.
If you have watched “The Elegant Universe” hosted by Brian Greene of Columbia University in the Discovery Science Channel last 27 December 2009 (which was replayed today January 2, 2010) or if you have seen the repetitious segment featuring the theoretical physicist Dr. Michio Kaku in that same channel, you would have learned that the leading and only theory closest to a complete unified theory of the universe is the “string theory”. It provides mathematical formulations that would unify or combine the general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics to make them compatible theories. It is covered in Chapter 11 (pp. 117 to 137). The previous edition of this book is entitled “A Brief History of Time”, but it was revised and ironically became “Briefer” as a result of “adding” a discussion of this string theory. From Einstein’s four-dimensional universe, theoretical physicists are now looking at the universe using 11 dimensions; and I believe the number is increasing because from the simple string theory, it is now turning into “superstring” theory or even into M-theory (i.e. mother of all theories) or what others in the field call as the theory of everything. I am not sure if this topic level is being discussed in our alma mater especially so that this is considerably beyond “basic” education already, but I believe this must have already been incorporated into advanced college physics by now. But those who are outstanding in high school physics are recommended to start reading about this topic so that by the time you’ll be taking your college, master’s or doctoral degrees, it’ll be less difficult for you to participate in this research endeavor. Who knows that maybe someday one of the Nobel Peace Prize awardees for Physics will come from our alma mater?
Another interesting topic covered in this book is time travel. We all remember the film “Back To The Future” and probably think it’s all science fiction. Indeed, it is still science fiction because part of the premise of time travel is the ability to travel at the speed of light or faster than light. At this time of writing, the fact remains no man has travelled faster than light. This science fiction may probably turn into reality if we humans all suddenly turn into spirits and then try the predictability of the theory or if we make intelligent machines that need no life support that can travel faster than light. Such topic is interesting because this science fiction was explained in this book invoking existing scientific principles. It’s like Einstein made easy. The discussion is found in both Chapters 6 and 10 dealing with curved space as well as wormholes and time travel, respectively.
Just like many, I’ve got a criticism on the idea of time travel too. And my criticism is not entirely on the plausibility of the scientific explanations, but more on the ramifications of time travel to human history. Hawking later admitted it is possible but impractical. Indeed, it is not practical. Besides the paradoxes you might have already learned from theoretical physicists or their critics, let me add a further example. Whenever we fantasize something, we would normally take the preferred role of heroes or the leading character roles. Suppose you are deeply in love with someone, but he/she ended up marrying another person. Yes, time travel would allow you to go back in time and change a life event in the past to your advantage so you’d end up getting married to that someone you really love. You may then be led to believe in the phrase “and they live happily ever after”. This may be true only from the perspective of someone who believes he/she deserves the lead role but forgets the “fact” that if he/she can travel back in time, so does any other person. If individual freedom still exists under such a fictional world, what makes you think that the man/woman you stole thru time travel won’t change mind and won’t insist to marry the person he/she initially married? Or what makes you think that the original husband/wife won’t be persistent enough to also travel back in time and really make sure you won’t be able to steal his/her spouse? In short, a life with time travel will most likely end up so chaotic and humans will probably never reach a “future”. It’s like… one day, “He’s/She’s mine!”… the next day, “No! He’s/She’s mine!” It will be like a never ending story of a “time travel” life that you’d probably want it to simply end at a certain point in time. Nonetheless, the book section on time travel is still unquestionably enchanting to read.
The book costs P1,049 (hard-bound) at the time of purchase, i.e. a few years back or at the year of publication, and has a total of 162 pages. I think there is a soft-bound copy now that costs less… probably around P700. It will be very helpful not only to university students who want to focus their undergraduate or graduate degrees in theoretical physics but also to high school science teachers who can get additional ideas from the book and make their students get interested in the field.
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