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[galactic_dev]

As a child, all of my Iowa test scores told me that I was to become a mathematician or scientist. Unfortunately, in 10th grade I learned how tedious lab work is, and I became politically radicalized.

Studying Political Science in college did not require any science or math that taught me anything new, so that part of my brain went underdeveloped. Thus my interest in popular science books.

Because of my science aptitude, I fear no popular science books, so I was quite surprised at how difficult this book was. It wasn't too difficult, and I enjoyed it immensely, but boy, was it ever a mental workout. I suppose if I had ever had an astronomy course before it would have been easier.

I learned a ton of interesting stuff in this book. I got a review of general and special relativity, quantum theory, and string theory, and for the first time I learned how studying quarks and other tiny "particles" connected to understanding the big bang and the shape of the universe. I learned about primordial black holes, wormholes, particle 'spin', and much else.

I was surprised at how often God popped up in this book. It was kind of fun, because we'd be in the middle of a discussion of some scientific theory of how the universe took shape, and suddenly he would ask about what kind of God could be behind such a universe. I once read an ironic definition of artificial intelligence as "whatever computers can't do yet," and I think a useful definition of god would be whatever science can't explain yet, but Hawking seems to believe there is a god and that science will help us "know the mind of God," which was kind of disappointing.

Considering how often Hawking detoured into religion and philosophy, I think he could profit from reading more Thomas Kuhn and other philosophers of science, because Hawking's modernist perspective was rather unconscious.

Still, despite these minor complaints, I found this book to be fascinating and educational.

[Missing the action]

I'm reading Brian Greene's The Fabric of the Cosmos, and while he doesn't dwell on (or really mention, for that matter) god, he does spend a lot of time explaining the weird, wild implications of the theories of relativity and quantum mechanics. My experiances so far seem to be very similar to yours: while the reading is not difficult, the concepts are mind-boggling and quite a mental workout. I find I have to read in small chunks, otherwise my brain reaches its saturation point and I don't absorb any more information.
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The moment you give somebody access to your mind and its processes you also provide a glimpse into the logical flaws it may also posses. I am not so egotistical as to submit the idea of my mind being flawless.