Kitty Ferguson

Stephen Hawking es una de las figuras más notables de nuestro tiempo: un genio de Cambridge que se ha ganado la fama internacional como un brillante físico teórico y que se ha convertido en una fuente de inspiracion para aquellos que han sido testigos de su valiente triunfo sobre su discapacidad. Para este libro Kitty Ferguson, conocida por su capacidad de traducir el lenguaje de la fisica teorica para un publico cientifico, ha contado con la colaboracion del propio Hawking y de sus colaboradores mas cercanos.Hace veinte años, una primera version de este libro se convirtio en un gran exito de ventas. Ahora, la autora vuelve sobre el tema en una cuidada biografia ampliada y actualizada, que nos permite conocer a Hawking desde su infancia, el comienzo desgarrador de su lucha con la enfermedad neurodegenerativa cuando era aun un estudiante de posgrado, su creciente fama internacional y su larga batalla por la supervivencia personal en la busqueda de una comprension cientifica del universo. A lo largo de la obra tambien se resume y explica a los profanos la ciencia de vanguardia con la que Hawking se ha comprometido.Ricamente ilustrado con fotografias, Stephen Hawking: su vida y obra esta escrito con claridad y sencillez . El resultado es un relato fascinante de una vida extraordinaria y la obra de una mente privilegiada.

This is the story of Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans, whose insights transformed the ancient world and still inspire the realms of science, mathematics, philosophy and the arts. Einstein said that the most incredible thing about our universe was that it was comprehensible at all. As Kitty Ferguson explains, Pythagoras had much the same idea - but 2,500 years earlier. Though known by many only for his famous Theorem, in fact the pillars of our scientific tradition - belief that the universe is rational, that there is unity to all things, and that numbers and mathematics are a powerful guide to truth about nature and the cosmos - hark back to the convictions of this legendary scholar. Kitty Ferguson brilliantly evokes Pythagoras ancient world of, showing how ideas spread in antiquity, and chronicles the incredible influence he and his followers have had on so many extraordinary people in the history of Western thought and science. Pythagoras influence on the ideas, and therefore on the destiny, of the human race was probably greater than that of any single man before or after him - Arthur Koestler.

Stephen Hawking was diagnosed with motor neurone disease at the age of 21 and was expected to live for only another two years. He went on to write books and deliver public lectures right up until his death at the age of 76 in 2018. Hawking achieved commercial success with several works of popular science in which he discusses his own theories and cosmology in general. His book A Brief History of Time, a laymans guide to cosmology, appeared on the Sunday Times best-seller list for a record-breaking 237 weeks and sold more than 10 million copies.As Martin Rees, the cosmologist, astronomer royal and Hawkings longtime colleague wrote, "His name will live in the annals of science; millions have had their cosmic horizons widened by his best-selling books; and even more, around the world, have been inspired by a unique example of achievement against all the odds a manifestation of amazing willpower and determination."In this concise and informative guide to Hawkings life and work, his key scientific achievements from gravitational singularities to quantum cosmology are covered in an approachable and accessible way. This is a celebration of an icon of modern physics, who inspired generations of scientists and changed our understanding of the universe.

The extraordinary, unlikely tale of Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler and their enormous contribution to astronomy and understanding of the cosmos is one of the strangest stories in the history of science.Kepler was a poor, devoutly religious teacher with a genius for mathematics. Brahe was an arrogant, extravagant aristocrat who possessed the finest astronomical instruments and observations of the time, before the telescope. Both espoused theories that seem off-the-wall to modern minds, but their fateful meeting in Prague in 1600 was to change the future of science.Set in one of the most turbulent and colourful eras in European history, when medieval was giving way to modern, Tycho and Kepler is a double biography of these two remarkable men.

Suppose you and I still wondered whether all of the pinpoints of light in the night sky are the same distance from us. Suppose none of our contemporaries could tell us whether the Sun orbits the Earth, or vice versa, or even how large the Earth is. Suppose no one had guessed there are mathematical laws underlying the motions of the heavens. How would - how did - anyone begin to discover these numbers and these relationships without leaving the Earth? What made anyone even think it was possible to find out how far, without going there? In Measuring the Universe we join our ancestors and contemporary scientists as they tease this information out of a sky full of stars. Some of the questions have turned out to be loaded, and a great deal besides mathematics and astronomy has gone into answering them. Politics, religion, philosophy and personal ambition: all have played roles in this drama. There are poignant personal stories, of people like Copernicus, Kepler, Newton, Herschel, and Hubble. Today scientists are attempting to determine the distance to objects near the borders of the observable universe, far beyond anything that can be seen with the naked eye in the night sky, and to measure time back to its origin. The numbers are too enormous to comprehend. Nevertheless, generations of curious people have figured them out, one resourceful step at a time. Progress has owed as much to raw ingenuity as to technology, and frontier inventiveness is still not out of date.

Una emocionante y accesible mezcla de historia y ciencia de vanguardia, una crónica del esfuerzo del hombre para expandir las fronteras de entendimiento del cosmos. ¿A qué distancia? ¿A qué velocidad? ¿Que dimensiones? ¿Que edad? ¿Quienes somos? Son cuestiones arraigadas a una curiosidad secular y cuyas respuestas exceden el ambito de las matematicas y la astronomia. La politica, la religion, la filosofia y la ambicion personal de los seres humanos, sin duda, tambien desempeñan su papel en este drama. Este libro examina dichos enigmas cientificos, asi como el dificil entorno desde el que han sido estudiados, discutidos y, en ocasiones, resuletos.

In 1963 Stephen Hawking was given two years to live. Defying all the odds, he died in March 2018 at age seventy-six as the most celebrated scientist in the world. This carefully researched and updated biography and tribute gives a rich picture of Hawkings remarkable life - his childhood, the heart-rending beginning of his struggle with motor neurone disease, his ever-increasing international fame, and his long personal battle for survival in pursuit of a scientific understanding of the universe. From more recent years, Kitty Ferguson describes his inspiring leadership at the London Paralympic Games, the release of the film The Theory of Everything, his continuing work on black holes and the origin of the universe, the discovery of supertranslations, and the astounding Starshot program. Here also are his intense concern for the future of the Earth and his use of his celebrity to fight for environmental and humanitarian causes, and, finally, a ground-breaking paper he was working on at the time of his death, in which he took issue with some of his own earlier theories. Throughout, Ferguson summarizes and explains the cutting-edge science in which Hawking was engaged and offers vivid first-hand descriptions of his funeral in Cambridge and the interment of his ashes in Westminster Abbey. This is an amazing and revealing tribute, assessing Hawkings legacy in and out of science.

What is a black hole? Could we survive a visit to one? Perhaps even venture inside? What would we find? Have we yet discovered any real black holes? And what do black holes teach us about what physicist John Archibald Wheeler called the deep, happy, mysteries of the universe?These are just a few of the tantalizing questions examined in this jargon-free review of one of the most fascinating topics in modern science. In search of the answers, we trace a star from its birth to its death throes, take a fabulous hypothetical journey to the border of a black hole and beyond, spend time with some of the worlds leading theoretical physicists and observational astronomers scanning the cosmos for evidence of real black holes, and take a whimsical look at some of the wild ideas black holes have inspired.