Talk:A Brief History of Time

message: In my copy of the first edition, on page 110, (Chapter 7, 'Black Holes Ain't so Black') it states "... distance of about a thousand million kilometers, or about as far away as Pluto, ..." Pluto orbits between 4.4 and 7.3 thousand million kilometers. One thousand million kilometers is actually just outside the orbit of Jupiter. Has anyone seen the same in later editions? Does it warrant mention in the article? 
Ronbennett2001 (talk) 03:14, 10 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mistake in first edition 

message: : "The author notes that for every equation in the book the readership will be halved, hence it includes only a single equation: E=mc²."
But isn't the author's note itself an equation, making the total 2?--StanZegel 17:46, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Equations count 

message: I find it a bit odd that the book was apparently made into a film, evidenced by the infobox and the categories it's in, but there's no mention of the film in the main text. --Last Malthusian 13:00, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Apparently, there is a separate wikipedia entry for the film here. Should the film infobox be moved to that entry? --Kooky (talk) 06:58, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I think so. It could be moved out again when the film article has grown.--I hate to register 20:51, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Film 

message: :Image:BriefHistoryTime.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in Wikipedia articles constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.
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thread_title: Fair use rationale for Image:BriefHistoryTime.jpg

message: This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 13:27, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  WikiProject class rating

message: How many copies were sold? Did this book help Hawking with the $$$ situation? --Zybez (talk) 21:33, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  How many copies sold? How much money? 

message: i have a question can anyone answer me as stated in a brief story of time that the universe is expanding and the galaxies that are moving away from us has its its spectrum shift towards red and spectrum shift towards blue indicates that they are moving towards us can anyone explain with example of a balloon if a balloon is inflated how can two points on it can actually make sense to make a spectrum shift towards blue if the points on the balloon are considered as galaxies. Please inform if anyone has this answer on biswasdeepankar@gmail.com thank you.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.197.117.165 (talk) 21:00, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  doubt not explained in a brief story of time 

message: Anyone has any information on how he writes his books? (He can't move) That would be informative.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Knight177 (talk • contribs) 06:49, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  How he write books?

message: The cover of my 1988 UK edition (ISBN 0-593-01518-5) is credited to Stephen W. Hawking rather than Stephen Hawking. Presumably SH decided to drop the middle initial at some stage. This is obviously a minor matter, but would be worth documenting in an article covering this important and influential book. Does anybody know the full story? --Ef80 (talk) 16:05, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Authorial credit 

message: In Prisoner of Azkaban you can see this book at the Leaky Cauldron (someone is reading it). if someone could add this that would be great. 75.91.86.216 (talk) 12:18, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Harry Potter Prisoner of Azkaban film cameo 

message: The image captioned "Kepler's sun-centric elliptical orbit model of the solar system" does not depict that.  Rather, it shows an image from an earlier work of Kepler where he was trying to model the radius of the planets' orbits as those that fit perfectly within nested platonic solids.
Rknop (talk) 12:29, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Incorrect Kepler Picture 

message: I (somewhat) object to the Wikipedia:WikiProject Physics expert attention needed template on this page. This is not physics, it is the philosophy of physics. This is something physicists are trained to avoid until retirement. I will, however, write out as what I see as the problems with the way this section is written, from one physicist's point of view:
*It talks about the thermodynamic arrow of time as if it were actually fact, not just a discussion in the book. This is a matter of philosophy and, as such, it is not a fact. This must be reworded (or qualified).
*The statement "Because of the "no boundary" proposal for the Universe, after a period of expansion, the Universe will probably start to contract. It will probably not go backwards in time to a smoother, orderly state." is horrible and must be either qualified as Hawking's personal, non-scientific prediction or otherwise be removed as fallacious.
*The following sentence, "The thermodynamic arrow in the contracting phase will not be as strong." must also be qualified as either Hawking's prediction or make reference to a part of the book where he works out some math.
*Need to replace "firstly, there is" with "Hawking's first arrow of time,". This was confusing when I first read it.
*Finally, replace "thirdly" with "finally". Just because it sounds better.
The final paragraph is good. They should all be like that. every sentence that sounds factual should be qualified with something like "Hawking postulates" or "He thinks". I think the whole section was meant to be read that way, but it comes across as teaching us about these concepts, which are inherently a matter of philosophy.
It has been a very, very long while since I indulged in popular physics books, but if need be, I can get a copy and fix this section up. It would be greatly appreciated, though, if others, that have the book, could take the initiative. Thanks! Footlessmouse (talk) 09:53, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe that the "imaginary time" to which that chapter refers is not just time as expressed in the laws of physics, but actually imaginary time, i.e., what you get when you Wick rotate a path integral to make it look like a partition function. XOR'easter (talk) 21:35, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
replies: text:   Thank you. You are correct, they are one and the same. I left that part mostly unchanged as I was not sure how to reword it. Hawking argues that general relativity and quantum mechanics cannot be reconciled without using said imaginary time and, therefore, claims that all of physics is dependent upon imaginary time. I am not sure how to reword that part. Footlessmouse (talk) 22:12, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

text: . Thank you for the comment. I have fixed the article to link to the imaginary time article and changed it to say "in contrast to "imaginary time", which Hawking claims is inherent to the laws of science". I believe this fixes the issue. I have also reworded a few parts and added in some extra links to time perception and entropy (arrow of time) articles. Please let me know if you find any other issues. Footlessmouse (talk) 22:58, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Chapter 9: The Arrow of Time 

message: The 'contents' section seems absurdly long for a wikipedia article on a book, even if it's non-fiction. It's almost 10% the word count of the book itself. Do we need that many words do summarize this book? It's not like it's a highly technical work. I'm tempted to put a long summary template up unless someone has a good explanation of why it's like this. 161.221.87.4 (talk) 19:00, 23 January 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Summary length 

message: Maybe that should be included in the article where eternal inflation is mentioned. 2600:8801:BE31:D300:BD48:F698:AD4C:752E (talk) 21:54, 29 May 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hawking, in later years, rejected the eternal inflation theory.  

message: On the article for Hawking Index, this book is cited as "the most unread book of all time". We could sync this by putting it somewhere along side the citation.
Danidamiobi (talk) 13:21, 5 December 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: First, it's not cited as the most unread book - it comes in fourth among the examples; and second this is not a serious index and it has not been computed for a large number of books; I don't think referencing it here adds valuable knowledge about A brief history of time. --Qcomp (talk) 20:35, 5 December 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Most unread book of all time according to Hawking Index.