On the shoulders of giants

Contents

By Stepehn Hawking
Published by Penguin, 2003
Paperback - great reading copy 

Hawking brings together the greatest works by Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton and Einstein, showing how their pioneering discoveries changed the way we see the world.

From Copernicus's revolutionary claim that the waeth's orbits the sun and Kepler's develeopment of the laws of planetary motion to Einstein's interweaving of time anbd space, each scientist built on the theories of their predecessors to answer the questions that had long mystified humanity.

Hawking also provides fascinating glimpses into their lives and times - Galeleo's trial in the papal inquisition, Newton's bitter fueds with rivals and Einstein's absent-minded jotting notes that woudl lead to his Theor of Relativity while psuhing his baby son's pram. depciting the great challenges these men faced and the lasting contributions they made, Hawking explains how their works transformed the course of science - and gave us better understanding of the universe and our place in it.