Reviews - The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of fhe Universe

44 reviews for:

The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of fhe Universe

This was very fascinating and challenging and my only complaint is that it was perhaps too technical to suit its purpose, which is supposed to be to clarify the main evidence for and about the big bang theory for a lay audience. Though that may just be my ignorance speaking :)

juanpablo_85's review against another edition

4.0

It's a fairly short book, only about 155 pages but there is a lot of information in it. The history of discovering what the Universe was like after the Big Bang is covered, the missteps & a clarification of how things are missed even with useful information available. It obviously goes into the conditions of the early universe. For me personally, reading a little bit about the basics of Quantum Physics & relativity helped me out tremendously with certain topics that were covered & I feel I might have been lost otherwise. Understanding the nature of quarks, particles, the 4 forces & things of that nature I think go a long way towards comprehending the material in this book & when the information "clicks" it just makes it all the more exciting. The book is fairly old but it is still relevant considering the things that have been confirmed in the years since this book was written. A definite must read if you're a fan of cosmology & trying to understand what the universe was & is like.

gwcoffey's review against another edition

4.0

This book was published in 1977 and revised in 1993, so it is definitely a little dated. But the period of time it covers was well understood at the time, so the information is still accurate.

I enjoyed every page. For me it strikes the right balance: not too technical that I can’t keep up, and not so basic that I feel talked down to. And unlike so many slightly-more-in-depth science books, it is very well written.

I loved this passage, after talking about a series of miscommunications, mis-interpretations, and missed opportunities along the way to understanding the early universe.

I have dwelt on this missed opportunity because this seems to me to be the most illuminating sort of history of science. It is understandable that so much of the historiography of science deals with its successes, with serendipitous discoveries, brilliant deductions, or the great magical leaps of a Newton or an Einstein. But I do not think it is possible really to understand the successes of science without understanding how hard it is—how easy it is to be led astray, how difficult it is to know at any time what is the next thing to be done.

orionis's review against another edition

4.5

challenging informative fast-paced

michinio's review against another edition

3.0

კარგია, მაგრამ ცოტა მოძველებულია მაინც.

suebrownreads's review against another edition

3.0

Okay, I actually only got through half of this book. The description says "clearly and accessibly written," But not for me. The math and science,/physics is beyond me.