A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
A Brief History of Time attempts to explain a range of subjects in cosmology, including the Big Bang, black holes and light cones, to the nonspecialist reader. Its main goal is to give an overview of the subject but, unusual for a popular science book, it also attempts to explain some complex mathematics. The 1996 edition of the book and subsequent editions discuss the possibility of time travel and wormholes and explore the possibility of having a universe without a quantum singularity at the beginning of time.
The author notes that an editor warned him that for every equation in the book the readership would be halved, hence it includes only a single equation: E = mc^2. Early in 1983, Hawking approached Simon Mitton, the editor in charge of astronomy books at Cambridge University Press, with his ideas for a popular book on cosmology. Mitton was doubtful about all the equations in the draft manuscript, which he felt would put off the buyers in airport bookshops that Hawking wished to reach. It was with some difficulty that he persuaded Hawking to drop all but one equation. In addition to Hawking's notable abstention from presenting equations, the book also simplifies matters by means of illustrations throughout the text, depicting complex models and diagrams.
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