Hacker News Reader

Brief Answers to the Big Questions by Stephen Hawking[1]. Not only about cosmology but also about topics such as the existence of god, finding life in other planets, the future of the humanity and other very intriguing questions.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Brief-Answers-Questions-Stephen-Hawki...

View on HN

I think the book is targeted towards a younger audience which might explain the lack of more thorough insights into the topics he selected. More disappointing for me was the choice of some of these topics - some of them are covered very superficially and sometimes even with a surprising one-sidedness. As I recently finished Factfulness by Hans Rosling - where he explains how the population increase is slowing down and experts having good reason to believe that it will again plateau in the future - I was stunned to hear Hawking exaggerate this danger over and over again. And unfortunately this was not the only topic on which he is not an expert and yet gives his opinion and presents it as fact. He covers religion, AI, social politics with a very broad brush and a very self assured tone: "Time didn't exist before the Big Bang so there is no time for God to make the universe in." Hawking's concept of God as being part of creation is different to the definition most people/religions have, so his argument feels incomplete. The editing is poor and makes the book feel rushed - which it might have been the case. Maybe they tried to capitalize on a great man's passing by having a new book quickly available. I'm being cynical, but I can't find a better reason why there are so many paragraphs being repeated in different chapters.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com