A BRIEFER HISTORY OF TIME

STEPHEN HAWKING
& LEONARD MLODINOW

STEPHEN HAWKING & LEONARD MLODINOW

A BRIEFER HISTORY OF TIME

Coming over the Horizon Because the earth is a sphere, the mast and sails of a ship coming over the horizon show themselves before its hull.

STEPHEN HAWKING & LEONARD MLODINOW

A BRIEFER HISTORY OF TIME

Ptolemys Model In Ptolemys model, the earth stood at the center of the universe, surrounded by eight spheres carrying all the known heavenly bodies.

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A BRIEFER HISTORY OF TIME

Atoms to Galaxies In the first half of the twentieth century, physicists extended the reach of their theories from the everyday world of Isaac Newton to both the smallest and the largest extremes of our universe.

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A BRIEFER HISTORY OF TIME

Gravitational Attraction of Composite Bodies If the mass of a body is doubled, so is the gravitational force that it exerts.

40 METERS

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A BRIEFER HISTORY OF TIME

Relativity of Distance The distanceand the paththat an object travels can look different to different observers.

The Speed of Light and the Timing of Eclipses The observed times of the eclipses of Jupiters moons depend on both the actual time of the eclipses and the time it takes their light to travel from Jupiter to the earth. Thus the eclipses seem to appear more frequently when Jupiter is moving toward the earth, and less frequently when it is moving away. This effect is exaggerated here for clarity.

STEPHEN HAWKING & LEONARD MLODINOW

A BRIEFER HISTORY OF TIME

STEPHEN HAWKING & LEONARD MLODINOW

A BRIEFER HISTORY OF TIME

Wavelength The wavelength of a wave is the distance between successive peaks or troughs.

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A BRIEFER HISTORY OF TIME

Different Speeds of Ping-Pong Balls According to the theory of relativity, although they may disagree, every observers measurement of an objects speed is equally valid.

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A BRIEFER HISTORY OF TIME

Coordinates in Space When we say that space has three dimensions, we mean that it takes three numbers, or coordinates, to specify a point. If we add time to our description, then space becomes space-time, with four dimensions.

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A BRIEFER HISTORY OF TIME

Distances on the Globe The shortest distance between two points on the globe is along a great circle, which does not correspond to a straight line if you are looking at a flat map.

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A BRIEFER HISTORY OF TIME

Path of a Spacecrafts Shadow Projected onto the two-dimensional globe, the path of a spacecraft flying along a straight line in space will appear curved.

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A BRIEFER HISTORY OF TIME

Precession of Mercurys Orbit As Mercury repeatedly orbits the sun, the long axis of its elliptical path slowly rotates, coming full circle roughly every 360,000 years.

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A BRIEFER HISTORY OF TIME

Bending of Light Near the Sun When the sun lies almost directly between the earth and a distant star, its gravitational field deflects the stars light, altering its apparent position.

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A BRIEFER HISTORY OF TIME

Parallax Whether you are moving down a road or through space, the relative position of nearer and farther objects changes as you go. A measure of that change can be used to determine the relative distance of the objects.

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A BRIEFER HISTORY OF TIME

Stellar Spectrum By analyzing the component colors of starlight, one can determine both the temperature of a star and the composition of its atmosphere.

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A BRIEFER HISTORY OF TIME

Blackbody Spectrum All objectsnot just starsemit radiation resulting from the thermal motion of the objects microscopic constituents. The distribution of frequencies in this radiation is characteristic of an objects temperature.

Doppler Effect When a wave source moves toward an observer, its waves appear to have a shorter
A BRIEFER HISTORY OF TIME

STEPHEN HAWKING & LEONARD MLODINOW

wavelength. If the wave source moves away, its waves appear to have a longer wavelength. This is called the Doppler effect.

Isotropic Forest Even if the trees in a forest are uniformly distributed, nearby trees may appear
A BRIEFER HISTORY OF TIME

STEPHEN HAWKING & LEONARD MLODINOW

bunched. Similarly, the universe does not look uniform in our local neighborhood, yet on large scales our view appears identical in whichever direction we look.

The Expanding Balloon Universe

STEPHEN HAWKING & LEONARD MLODINOW

As a result of the expansion of the universe, all galaxies are moving directly away from each other. Over time, like spots on an inflating balloon, galaxies that are farther
A BRIEFER HISTORY OF TIME

apart increase their separation more than nearer galaxies. Hence, to an observer in any given galaxy, the more distant a galaxy is, the faster it appears to be moving.

Photon/Electron/Positron Equilibrium In the early universe, there was a balance between pairs of electrons and positrons colliding to create photons, and the reverse process. As the temperature of the universe dropped, the balance was altered to favor photon creation. Eventually most electrons and positrons in the universe annihilated each other, leaving only the relatively few electrons present today.

STEPHEN HAWKING & LEONARD MLODINOW

A BRIEFER HISTORY OF TIME

STEPHEN HAWKING & LEONARD MLODINOW

A BRIEFER HISTORY OF TIME

Cannonballs Above and Below Escape Velocity What goes up need not come downif it is shot upward faster than the escape velocity.

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A BRIEFER HISTORY OF TIME

Tidal Forces Since gravity weakens with distance, the earth pulls on your head with less force than it pulls on your feet, which are a meter or two closer to the earths center. The difference is so tiny we cannot feel it, but an astronaut near the surface of a black hole would be literally torn apart.

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A BRIEFER HISTORY OF TIME

Faintest Possible Light Faint light means fewer photons. The faintest possible light of any color is the light carried by a single photon.

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A BRIEFER HISTORY OF TIME

Smeared Quantum Position According to quantum theory, one cannot pinpoint an objects position and velocity with infinite precision, nor can one predict exactly the course of future events.

In and Out of Phase If the crests and troughs of two waves coincide, they result in a stronger wave, but if one waves crests coincide with anothers troughs, the two waves cancel each other.

STEPHEN HAWKING & LEONARD MLODINOW

A BRIEFER HISTORY OF TIME

Path Distances and Interference In the two-slit experiment, the distance that waves must travel from the top and bottom slits to the screen varies with height along the screen. The result is that the waves reinforce each other at certain heights and cancel at others, forming an interference pattern.

STEPHEN HAWKING & LEONARD MLODINOW

A BRIEFER HISTORY OF TIME

STEPHEN HAWKING & LEONARD MLODINOW

A BRIEFER HISTORY OF TIME

Electron Interference Because of interference, the result of sending a beam of electrons through two slits does not correspond to the result of sending the electrons through each slit separately.

Waves in Atomic Orbits Niels Bohr imagined the atom as consisting of electron waves endlessly circling atomic nuclei. In his picture, only orbits with circumferences corresponding to a whole number of electron wavelengths could survive without destructive interference.
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A BRIEFER HISTORY OF TIME

Many Electron Paths In Richard Feynmans formulation of quantum theory, a particle, such as this one
STEPHEN HAWKING & LEONARD MLODINOW

moving from source to screen, takes every possible path.

A BRIEFER HISTORY OF TIME

STEPHEN HAWKING & LEONARD MLODINOW

A BRIEFER HISTORY OF TIME

Time Machine The authors in a time machine.

Wormhole If wormholes exist, they could provide shortcuts between distant points in space.

STEPHEN HAWKING & LEONARD MLODINOW

A BRIEFER HISTORY OF TIME

STEPHEN HAWKING & LEONARD MLODINOW

A BRIEFER HISTORY OF TIME

Antiparticle la Feynman An antiparticle can be regarded as a particle traveling backward in time. A virtual particle /antiparticle pair can therefore be thought of as a particle moving on a closed loop in space-time.

Particle Exchange According to quantum theory, forces arise from the exchange of force-carrying particles.
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STEPHEN HAWKING & LEONARD MLODINOW

Feynman Diagram of Virtual Particle/Antiparticle Pair The uncertainty principle, as applied to the electron, dictates that even in empty space virtual particle/antiparticle pairs appear and then annihilate each other.
A BRIEFER HISTORY OF TIME STEPHEN HAWKING & LEONARD MLODINOW

Feynman Diagrams in String Theory In string theories, long-range forces are viewed as being caused by connecting tubes rather than the interchange of force-carrying particles.

STEPHEN HAWKING & LEONARD MLODINOW

A BRIEFER HISTORY OF TIME

STEPHEN HAWKING & LEONARD MLODINOW

A BRIEFER HISTORY OF TIME

The Importance of Being Three-Dimensional In more than three space dimensions, planetary orbits would be unstable and planets would either fall into the sun or escape its attraction altogether.

From Turtles to Curved Space Ancient and modern views of the universe.
STEPHEN HAWKING & LEONARD MLODINOW

A BRIEFER HISTORY OF TIME

A BRIEFER HISTORY OF TIME

All rights reserved. Copyright 2005 by Stephen Hawking
Original art copyright 2005 The Book Laboratory Inc. Image of Professor Stephen Hawking Pages 5, 10, and 25 Stewart Cohen Acknowledgments Book Illustrations The Book Laboratory Inc., James Zhang, and Kees Veenenbos Image of Marilyn Monroe The Estate of Andre de Dienes/Ms. Shirley de Dienes licensed by One West Publishing, Beverly Hills, Ca. 90212

STEPHEN HAWKING & LEONARD MLODINOW

A BRIEFER HISTORY OF TIME

A BRIEFER HISTORY OF TIME