An Unreliable History Unfortunate

BOOK REVIEWS a man who, like Maxwell. is searching for unification of the forces, this error is An unreliable history unfortunate. And what are we to make of the statements that the Hawking fami Simon Mitton ly are lifelong members of the Labour party, when a page is devoted to describ Stephen Hawking: A Life in Science. By Michael White and John Gribbin. Viking: ing his painting "VOTE LIBERAL" graffiti? 1992. Pp. 304. £16.99. To be published in June in the United States by New The authors resort to the literary American Library at $23. device of fiction based on fact because of the absence of new evidence about STEPHEN Hawking has been poorly The problems arise with the bio Hawking. In a distortion of the Oxford served by this biography, which mixes graphical element and the supporting of the 1960s, cliches abound: dukes' good popular science with flawed his structure. It is all too clear that the daughters in ball gowns, lazy days punt tory. Hawking's achievements in physics authors were working with inadequate ing, "hung-over young men and occa are clearly remarkable, his battle against and poorly researched material. The sional women" at breakfast. Scholarships a crippling disease is inspirational , and quotations attributed to Hawking, his were not offered by the university, and even now the success of A Brief History family and most of his collaborators are the financial element of college awards of Time is inexplicable. This is an largely taken from existing sources, such was nominal. Instead of searching out intensely interesting story; the examination Hawking sat, sadly, the target is missed. the authors invent a "typical Hawking's research has prin question". cipally dealt with the very ear Cambridge gets the same ly Universe, the physics of treatment. It is very unlikely black holes and the search for that only the final chapter of a unified theory of everything. Hawking's thesis saved him His intriguing discoveries in from failure to be awarded a clude such counter-intuitive PhD. It is false to say that the concepts as the notion that role of a college fellow "has 'mini' black holes can evapo changed little since Sir Isaac rate. In 1974, this break Newton's time" and that the through, now known as the duties of fellows are minimal Hawking effect, showed that apart from research. I do not quantum physics and general believe that Hawking regards relativity could give new in physics as a "perfect displace formation on the workings of ment activity", and he is not the Universe. As White and head of his department. Gribbin explain, the work on The time axis of this book is exploding black holes then led punctuated by news flashes Hawking to concentrate on the that demand knowledge of singularity that led to the birth British history: we are told of our Universe. By the mid- that as Hawking thinks, in 1970s, he was firmly estab 1982, peace protesters are on lished as one of the leading Greenham Common, just in physicists of his generation. case we cannot locate the Since then, Hawking and his event in spacetime. Some of school have searched for a uni this too is sheer invention. fied theory in which all of This book describes a walk I physics would be described by Hawking- Making hard physics a required purchase. never made, during which a a single set of equations. The car I never saw pulled up, and 'end of physics' is sought in the first as the television programme Master of I never ate tea and biscuits for lunch. glimmer of our Universe, a scrunched-up the Universe and interviews given to Hawking wrote a book that changed opportunity space with numerous hidden launch A Brief History of Time. New popular science publishing. As a result, dimensions. This is serious physics, material is based on a few interviews booksellers are much more confident which could have a profound influence with people (including myself) mainly about displaying science books. To be on on gravitational physics and cosmology. outside the penumbra. Some of this is the bestseller list for three years is a Many of those who bought A Brief little more than tittle-tattle, such as small stupendous achievement. A chance is History of Time have not read it because incidents on train journeys from London missed here to explain why the book has it is difficult. White and Gribbin succeed to Cambridge, Hawking's undergraduate sold so well. If I had acquired the rights in giving a clearer description of the pranks, subjective statements about I would have been pleased with sales at physical Universe that interests Hawk Hawking, and his tangle with a college one per cent of those achieved so far. ing. The chapters devoted to modem bursar over the charge for a room. What is it that pushes a product into the physics are done well and they capture More seriously, the book contains 'must have' category? How can hard the excitement of scientific investigation many errors. We are told that Maxwell physics be a required purchase? For of the most fundamental kind. With the wrote his equations "in order to explain answers to these and other questions we biography entirely stripped out, the re radio waves which had recently been must await a more reliable biography. 0 maining material would make a book of discovered". In fact, Maxwell's equa the sort that James Jeans was writing in tions were published in 1864, and in 1879 Simon Mitton is a science publisher at Cam the 1930s or Paul Davies today: a good Helmholtz suggested to Hertz the ex bridge University Press and a fellow of St story to get through in one evening, with periments that led to the detection of Edmund's College, University of Cambridge, plenty to talk about the next day. radio waves in 1888. In the biography of Cambridge CB3 OBN, UK. NATURE · VOL 356 · 5 MARCH 1992 25 © 1992 Nature Publishing Group.

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