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Title: A Stubbornly Persistent Illusion: The Essential Scientific Works of Albert Einstein
ISBN: 0762430036
Author:
Stephen Hawking
Publicate Date: 2007-11-26
Publish: 2007-11-26
List Price: $29.95
Average Customer Rating: 5.0
Format: Hardcover
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $4.79
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $3.47
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| Customer Review: |
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1: Stephen Hawking on Einstein-
A Brief History of TimeGeorge's Secret Key to the UniverseArchimedes to Hawking: Laws of Science and the Great Minds Behind ThemEinstein: His Life and Universe
Imagine where we would be if these two, Einstein and Hawking, had worked together!
Hawking puts information into the theories and makes for a more complete understanding into Einstein's times and mind.
A very good book, well versed and full of information, layed out and explained in their own words.
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2: Einstein's seminal works commented on by Stephen Hawking
The most highly celebrated and recognized scientist alive today, Stephen Hawking has assembled, in this volume, highlights of Einstein's groundbreaking scientific works, such as his Special Theory of Relativity (1905) and his General Theory of Relativity (1915).
Also included are Einstein's thoughtful views on politics, religion, the history and development of physics, and the interplay between science and the world.
In a chapter titled "Selections from Out of My Later Years," Hawking discusses Einstein's reservations concerning quantum mechanics: "Einstein pointed out that if we were able to investigate microscopic phenomena on the smallest scales, we would be able to find deterministic relations." In other words, Einstein had serious doubts about the validity of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, and rejected the fundamentally probabilistic nature of reality espoused by those who held to the workings of chance and randomness at the quantum (microscopic) level. "God does not play dice with the universe," he famously opined; "God is subtle but he is not malicious." He held adamantly (some would say stubbornly) to his belief that physical reality is, at bottom, deterministic.
Hawking gives brief introductions to each of Einstein's papers, thereby providing helpful historical and scientific perspectives.
Einstein once said, "Do not worry about your difficulties in mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater." Yeah, right! Einstein is much too modest.
In a sense, however, Einstein is correct. Although this volume is replete with mathematical equations, one can read between the lines and gain an improved understanding of his revolutionary theories of spacetime and gravitation.
Einstein makes us smile with his wry humor: "Today I am described in Germany as a 'German savant,' and in England as a 'Swiss Jew.' Should it ever be my fate to be represetned as a bete noire, I should, on the contrary, become a 'Swiss Jew' for the Germans and a 'German savant' for the English."
The book's title of comes from another Einstein quote, "People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion."
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