Under The Microscope

BLACK HOLES AND BABY UNIVERSES by Stephen Hawking; Bantam 1993; 182pp; $49.95 (hardback)
STEPHEN HAWKING: QUEST FOR A THEORY OF EVERYTHING by Kitty Ferguson; Bantam 1992; 192 pp; $19.95 (paperback)

Writing A Brief History of Time catapulted Stephen Hawking from the modest degree of fame due one of the world's top theoretical physicists to a level of scientific celebrity that rivals that of Einstein. Hawking is now the centre of a small publishing industry. Black Holes and Baby Universes is a collection of speeches and articles by Hawking. A transcript of a Desert Island Discs special featuring Hawking is incorporated as the last chapter.

I found the autobiographical chapters, while tantalisingly terse, the most interesting parts of the collection. The essay that provides the title for the book is a virtuoso account of "baby universes", theoretical constructs produced in the amalgamation of quantum mechanics and general relativity which has been Hawking's predominant interest for the last twenty years.

Enlightenment is not painless, and the frugal reader may feel that $50 is too steep for a book of modest size set in a large font. I have seen Black Holes and Baby Universes in paperback, which would make it better value for money.

The second book, Stephen Hawking: Quest for a Theory of Everything by Kitty Ferguson, is, to quote its cover, "The Story of His Life and Work". I found this book frustrating, as it fails to get to grips with its subject. Ferguson's account of modern physics, while occasionally misleading, is pitched at a very simple level and written in an enthusiastic style which will encourage faint-hearted readers. This ground has been covered by many writers, but the emphasis on Hawking's life and background differentiates this book from other popularisations.

Unfortunately, although Ferguson is careful to provide sources for her quotes, she relies excessively on secondary sources for her account of Hawking's life and his place in modern physics. Her account of Hawking's early life is drawn almost entirely from two autobiographical pieces by Hawking, which were unpublished when she was writing but are now available in Black Holes and Baby Universes, and a reader interested in Hawking's life would be better to read Hawking's account of himself, rather than the paraphrase offered by Ferguson. Hawking is not enthusiastic about the prospect of being the subject of a serious biography, so more detail may be hard to obtain in the near future.

Dr Richard Easther is an astrophysicist currently based in Japan.