Literature Analysis #1

Topic(s) and/or Event(s)

1) The book I chose is about exactly what it says in the title, The Theory of Everything. Stephen Hawking wrote the book and he dives into some of the outrageous theories that have come up in the past and proves most of them to be correct. It goes as far back as Aristotle's and even Galileo's theories about the universe. He explains what they had correct and what they were slightly off about. Hawking goes on to explain the basics of Einstein's theory of relativity and how important that discovery was. The book talks about the life and death of star, the big bang, black holes, and even the direction of time.

2) Stephen Hawking probably chose to write about this subject because he is an expert at it. He has one of the most brilliant minds when it comes to physics and even space in general. It's no surprise that he would choose this subject to write about.

3) I chose this book because space really interests me. It's always interested me because there is so much out there that we have yet to discover. It came to my attention because I was looking up books about space and time and saw that this one was written by a well known theoretical physicist. I knew I had to read it.

4) I found the book highly realistic because it is all about scientific facts. The book made connections to stories I have read that are about recent discoveries in science on the microscopic level. The book talks about how stars are created and recent discoveries have dug deeper into these elements that make up stars.

People

1) The author chose to write this book because it is informational and insightful. There is no doubt the author wanted the audience to think bigger and to learn from this book. The authors tone is informative and straight forward. This book is purely for information and inspiration.

2) x

3) The discoveries the people spoken about in the book makes them interesting enough to write about. They made some incredible observations about the universe and proposed some outrageous theories then went on to prove them. Their life's work was dedicated to their studies.

Style

1) The author used an informative journalistic style of writing when writing this book. He wrote sentences like, "the work that Roger Penrose and I did between 1965 and 1970 showed that, according to general relativity, there must be a singularity of infinite density within the black hole".

2) The author uses lengthy descriptions of different theories and scenes throughout the book. In a way he kind of has to to get his point across. It is not easy describing the stuff he does in this book but he manages to do it. This makes the book seem complicated at times and makes you have to read a sentence two or three times to get it but he makes it work.

3) x

4) I think the author's attitude toward the subject was that he cared about the subject a lot. It was easy to tell that it really interested him and he enjoyed writing about it. The way he added so much detail to what he was describing was very thorough. You could tell that he wanted to inform the audience and that he cared about what he wanted everyone to read. The book isn't as long as you might think so in each lecture it is easy to understand the key points he was trying to make.

5) The author used the work written down by previous theoretical physicists and astronomers. He talked about what they discovered and how they came about doing that. He mentioned many people made important discoveries/proposed theories about the universe such as Aristotle, Galileo, Einstein, and many more. It gave a background about how the theories proposed today came about and made it easier when it came to understanding how they got to these theories about the universe. The author also mentioned that the theories and discoveries made today are far more accurate than the ones made by people in the Aristotle and Galileo era and even during Einstein's time. I think that is important to note because even more discoveries have yet to be found.

Enduring Memory

An idea from this book that I think will stick with me is the birth and death of a star. It is born when a large amount of gas, mostly hydrogen, starts to collapse in on itself due to gravitational attraction. The atoms of gas collide with each other as it contracts and the gas heats up. Eventually it will get so hot that hydrogen atoms will no longer bounce off of each other but rather merge with each other to form helium atoms. It then begins expanding like a balloon and lives its life over millions of years. When it has burn all of its fuel and comes to the end of its life it will either, depending on its size, expand then contract into a white dwarf or explode into a supernova. This supernova will create new galaxies and sometimes, if it is dense enough, create a black hole. Black holes interest me because we can't understand them yet because the laws of physics break down in them. The life cycle of a star is interesting to me because it is nature recycling itself and creating new matter with the leftovers of a star that was created by another star.