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A review by marc129
Brief Answers to the Big Questions by Stephen Hawking
2.0
This book has been compiled by daughter Lucy Hawking and contains an anthology of the most important popularizing work of her father Stephen. Although it was published after his death, Hawking was involved in the editing process at the end of his life, but he didn't really finish it. Of course I recognized many pieces from "A Brief History of Time", the book for which Hawking is best known to the general public and which I read a few weeks ago. In that sense it did not offer me much new, except for the pieces that dealt with climate change and artificial intelligence.
What is striking once again is the remarkable social involvement of Hawking (cf. the aforementioned themes), his humour and his openly professed optimism, which was based on a strong belief in science (he uses the word ‘belief’ explicitly). Just like in "A Brief History", his ability to clearly explain extremely difficult matters (on black holes for instance) is striking. The only regrettable, but at the same time unavoidable thing is that it is noticeable that this book consists of cutting and pasting from different sources. (2.5 stars)
What is striking once again is the remarkable social involvement of Hawking (cf. the aforementioned themes), his humour and his openly professed optimism, which was based on a strong belief in science (he uses the word ‘belief’ explicitly). Just like in "A Brief History", his ability to clearly explain extremely difficult matters (on black holes for instance) is striking. The only regrettable, but at the same time unavoidable thing is that it is noticeable that this book consists of cutting and pasting from different sources. (2.5 stars)