https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Brief_History_of_Time

Makes my life feel ephemeral and therefore more precious

https://amzn.to/2Jm01dG

It's an easy concept to grasp, but many people resist considering an event to have not yet happened when it has not yet crossed our lightcone. If you are really interested, then I suggest Stephen Hawking's book A Brief History of Time.

2.Dragons of Eden by Carl Sagan: Made me love biology

3.Brief History of Time: Increased interest and self confidence in Science.

4. Phantoms in the Brain : How complex problems can be solved by out of the box thinking.

https://imgur.com/3hJ9z6O

Another, The Almanack of Naval Ravikant. Probably the podcast or the free PDF versions.

Shame because the few bits I have read are actually very good indeed.

I have nothing programming related on my desk; we have Google to thanks for that.

For the cosmological implications of this fact, there's Lawrence Krauss's book "A Universe from Nothing", also "The Inflationary Universe" by Alan Guth, and Stephen Hawking touches on it in "A Brief History of Time."

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_energy

[1] A Brief History of Time (the documentary film)

I think the writing in this article is not so good, but I've seen this usage by plenty of respectable writers. Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time" is not comically bad writing, and it's full of even more outlandish usages of "million million million ..."

https://www.google.com/search?q=brief+history+of+time+"milli...

Most academics who also write popular works aren't prickly about describing their popular works as such; I don't think Hawking would get upset at someone describing A Brief History of Time as pop cosmology.

This is a fantastic piece, and even though some images are more visually striking, for me the ones that gives me the most chills are the time-lapse of stellar motion around Sagittarius A. Those are stars* being whipped around like toys. Stars. Over 97% of the mass of the solar system is just Sol, and these stars are more massive, and look at them move!

Chills.

For all his accomplishments, Gell-Mann couldn't be happy until he had written a best seller like Feynman's. Adding to his melancholy, "Surely, You're Joking" was followed in 1988 by Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time, which sold more than nine million copies. To Gell-Mann's colleagues, a book of light-hearted anecdotes told by their intense and pedantic friend seemed a dubious prospect. It would have to be called, one of them said, "Dammit, Murray, You're Right Again!" Others remarked that Gell-Mann, unlike Hawking, didn't have the advantage of being confined to a wheelchair.

-Organized an event for +200 people with +10 sponsors for a non-profit.

-Read amazing books, most notably: Zero to One, The Innovator's Dilemma, Good to Great and A Brief History of Time; among others.

-Considerably improoved my competitive programming skills

-Made various sites, I'm rocking on front-end dev

-Went to India to teach various subjects to unprivileged kids

-Went to Dubai to share time with my dad after having him away for 19 years

-Traveled to the US 2 times (Florida and North Virginia)

-Have written essays which really smart people are debating around the internet

-Despite the heavy workload, I'm keeping up with college

Lol, I must have been such a freak of a kid. I found this book in the library when I was 11yo and read it in a couple of weeks.

Couldn't do it these days. We didn't have internet back then.

I highly recommend The Age of Entanglement, one of the best general audience books on quantum physics! Quite a page turner!

I'm just one of many, but he unmistakably and uniquely affected my life for the better.

Growing up, I read Brief History of Time and Universe In A Nutshell dozens of times each. I relished the jokes I got, and I won't forget him.

I also weep for him, knowing he never got the Nobel prize he wanted so very much.

I haven't shed a tear for many people in their passing, but I have for him.

Thank you for opening my eyes to the wonders of the universe. You are an irreplaceable part of who I have become today.

-Secrets of Sandhill Road

-Hackers and Painters

-The Great CEO within

-Venture Deals

-Predictable Revenue

-Zero to One

-The Hard Thing About Hard Things

-Lean customer development

-Lost and founder

-Lean B2B

-From Impossible to Inevitable

-Traction

Best computer science books:

-Competitive programming 3

-Structure and interpretation of computer programs

Best for fun (non-fiction):

-Meditations

-Sapiens

-How to win friends and influence people

-A brief history of time

-Self-reliance

-Frente a la estrella polar

Both of them are my favorite popular-science authors. My apetite was whetted with Hawking's "A Brief History of Time", which led me to Sir Roger's "The Emperor's New Mind". Although relatively denser, with much focus I was able to understand the topics he covered (which were fascinating, and I still think about them) but I could never explain it back to you if needed!

If your're reading fiction, then it is most likely just entertainment. So, its equivalent to watching a fiction movie or tv show, or whatnot.

I find it odd thats its encouraged and considered good to just read, regardless of content. What you're reading is critical.

You can read 'Harry Potter' and divert and entertain yourself, or read 'A Brief History of Time', and do the same, but also learn a bit.

In reality, it means stuff like "You should not buy homeopathic cures because it's exactly the same as water."

I'm OK with science being the arbiter of truth when it has evidences.

Edit: Also, in my opinion, Hawking's A Brief History of Time is one of the best books that explained basic ideas of cosmology (and how it is worked on) in terms that laypeople can understand. If that makes him worthy of a special mention of criticism, I don't know what to say.

The thing about econ is it's closely connected to political philosophy, and politics causes all sorts of partisan issues. Witness the furore over Piketty's work over recent years.

So why do I say it's necessary and evil?

Well it's necessary because it's often the only way for someone outside of academia to get an overview of a topic. Without these kinds of work we'd be lost rifling through various journal papers, not knowing which ones are considered important and which ones not.

It's evil because that editorial power is seductive. To sell books, that author needs to make a forceful point. To do that, you can't just leave the evidence at "inconclusive", even though that might be sensible. Why write a book at all if it says "we don't know"? So we get selection bias in what books are written.

A friend of mine writes pop-econ books, and from a very libertarian point of view. Something about it seems like a just-so story. The inherent noisiness of economic evidence is lost, all the graphs are cherry picked to support his view. And yet you'd have to dig quite a lot to find specific things to complain about.

I studied economics myself, and on a lot of things I thought the stack of papers had good arguments one way and the other. My tutor, a famous Marxist, was also quite good at giving the free market side of evidence, so it's not like he was all one-sided.

My main concern is that people who haven't had a bit of exposure to economics at university think that it's like picking up A Brief History of Time. Basically true, but for laymen (wonder what a real physicist would think, heh). In actuality a lot of it is opinion, disguised as science. (In fact I tend to view a lot of economics like that; Opinions well defended by some sort of evidence.)

A person who strongly follows particular trends and styles on facebook is much more likely to share the same favorite medias as those facebook participants who share similar interests; this is two-sided, though. On one hand, you could say that it's the interests that shaped the person into the trends and styles that they participate, but the other possibility is that the person is emulating people who have the styles and trends that they wish for themselves, and simply merging information from a suitable profile.

Ever wonder how your friends found the time to read through A Brief History of Time and GEB without you ever knowing of their interests in science and math, or ever having caught them reading a book?

They didn't.

Obviously I got accused of cheating - and it could well be argued I had an advantage over my classmates (who struggled with an inadequate text book!).

The definition is subjective: but, writing answers on your cuffs helps no one :)

It makes a nice change to everyone saying that their favourite book is "A brief history of time" or "Contact".

And while it's clearly in jest, one of the things that puts me off working for a trendy startup is that many are essentially solving rich, busy people's problems, but claim to be making the world a better place.

• “Don Quixote” (Cervantes): unanimously considered the best work of fiction in the Spanish-speaking world… and on many lists, even #1 of world literature, ever (!). Often overlooked (at least in Spain) by young folks as it is long, the language is archaic, and its themes appear quaint and silly today at first sight. But there's a reason it has been praised for centuries. It's funny and tender. Themes are also modern, and Cervantes' style is playful and innovative, making use of devices such as meta-references, alternative pasts, removal of the fourth wall, etc. I'm not sure how much non-native audiences can enjoy translations, though.

• “The Lord of the Rings” (Tolkien) for the original epic and touching fantasy. (I know many people devour it in their teens, or in their early youth… But I read it as an adult; quite late. Mainly because it seemed to be the only “difficult” book that many of my friends bothered to read, and that predisposed me negatively towards it. Also, my family hadn't read it, and there was no copy of it in our house.)

• “Brief History of Time” (Stephen Hawking): mind-boggling introduction to (astro-)physics, modern cosmogony, etc.

1) That science was graspable, even by me, given enough time to reflect (and a good teacher helps).

2) That science requires sparks of creativity, in addition to all of its methodology, and that being a scientist can involve being creative.

After that I turned to more 'big picture' stuff to try to at least get a survey of the breadth of knowledge. Like you mention the Feynman Lectures are great for this. You can also find them online [1] which may be more convenient. "A Brief History of Time" is also a phenomenal big picture look at cosmology, which is my current primary interest.

Perhaps the best resource of all, and what I'm currently working through, is Leonard Susskind's "The Theoretic Minimum." I first saw this as a book. It's essentially a physics overview intended for those with a solid mathematical background, but without much formal education in physics. The book is excellent, an even better resource for this is the site [2] for it. It has extensive coverage and lectures on all major topics. The only downside is the lack of questions or material to test your understanding.

Ultimately, I think the most important thing is to find something that draws you in. From there everything is easy. Take a weekend sometime and really dig into something that fascinates you. Time dilation in general, the twin paradox, black holes and their funkiness at the event horizon, the two slit experiment in quantum mechanics, etc. These are all things with massive amounts of information available that can really draw you in.

[1] - http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/
[2] - http://theoreticalminimum.com/courses

As for "what questions to ask for", start with the clear and explicit: "who's expecting to make money...? And how do they expect to make it?" This will lead you to interest rates and bond coupons, dividends, etc... But make certain you understand the math.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the curvature of space around - and within - a neutron star substantial enough that euclidean geometry doesn't really hold anymore? The volume of a basketball is the surface area x R/3, but is that true of a neutron star? I was under the impression that the difference between Euclid and actual was statistically significant, to the point that you get the wrong behavior if you don't account for it.

Every generation has this bug bear (well, I suppose every modenr generation). For a LONG time I've thought you could scrap large parts of most Physics courses and instead get the kids to read A Brief History of Time (the one with some actual math), In Search of Schroedingers Cat and a couple of others. They make it much more digestable.

The Blind Watchmaker covers most important biology.

And I've always argued that the Mitnick books should play an integral part of any school/college level IT class.

But it wont happen :)

_The Way to Wealth_ by Benjamin Franklin

_The Book of Job_ by Job, from The Bible

_Meditations_ by Marcus Aurelius

_The Prince_ by Niccolo Machiavelli

_The Bill of Rights_ by James Madison

_The Gospel According to John_ by John, from The Bible

_The Gospel According to Luke_ by Luke, from The Bible

_The Acts of the Apostles_ by Luke, from The Bible

_The Song of Solomon_ by Solomon, from The Bible

_Heimskringla_ transcribed by Snorri Sturluson

These books have combined to make me the free-thinking, reactionary stoic that I am today. Most of them are old, but they contain much wisdom about life, work, politics, gender relations, spirtuality, and history. Please let me know if you have questions. :)

Those things you list seem relatively good, no? Making a microprocessor from gates while " just hooking up " sounds pretty near idyllic.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=155054.100

http://www.finney.org/~hal/

http://www.noozhawk.com/local_news/article/101710_hal_finney...

(I'm unsure whether Aaron got a response from Hal.)

Hal's response to his diagnosis has been defiant. He got the tracheotomy and is determined to live a long, productive, and worthwhile life.

I have great reverence for Aaron's concern for the burden he would be on his family, and I certainly don't claim to understand what it would be like to be in his shoes. But I personally am a big supporter of Hal's philosophy. I encourage Aaron and other ALS sufferers to consider this path. Never in history has an intellectually constructive and satisfying life with ALS been as technologically feasible as it is now.

[Edited to reflect the first link.]

Edit 2: It's also worth noting that ALS is what has crippled Stephen Hawking. He got a tracheotomy in 1985, at which point his "A Brief History of Time" was only partially completed. He finished it, and has made many important professional contributions since.

http://www.hawking.org.uk/living-with-als.html

That said the google SRE book isn't useful unless you're actually working at that scale, so seems more like the webdev version of A Brief History of Time or GEB where the important thing is to be able to say you've read it (or at least have it on your bookshelf)

It is not a self help book, it's not a "10 crazy things your doctor won't tell you!" book, it's a story about the more interesting findings of a Nobel Prize winner (Nobel Memorial Prize apparently, after checking wikipedia) extremely well explained.

I think the only book that's left me stopping every few pages and going "huh... so that's why..." or prodding someone near to explain a cool new thing is a Brief History of Time when I was younger (also a thoroughly good read if you've not done so, having being reminded now).

Or maybe you just didn't know they were interested in the first place. I actually discovered thanks to Facebook that I share interests with many of the people who I didn't ever suspect on being interested in the same things as I.

I'm an active Facebook user with 500+ friends, most of whom I know in real life, and I'm pretty sure almost none of them is consciously trying to "build a better image of themselves" in any other way they don't already do in real life.

Seriously, everybody is "building their image" in "real life" all the time. If you go over to a friend to see the photos from a mountain trip, they will show you the nice one, not the ones when they sleep drunk under the table. Facebook actually makes it somewhat more difficult, because unlike face to face conversations, everything you wrote or posted is there to stay.

Purely scientific questions like P!=NP are interesting to more than just academics. A Brief History of Time has sold over a million copies, and I bet mostly not to physicists.

I think I've read over half of the volumes mentioned there, and disliked a lot of them. I thought "The Grapes of Wrath" was awful, and never did figure out why anybody was ever impressed by "The Catcher In The Rye". To me, both of those were good examples of books that people read because other people read them, and nobody can really describe why they're so profound, but since everybody else has read them, they must be. And, among all these "profound" works, they included "Into Thin Air". I enjoyed it, and I used to be a climber, but what's it doing on that list?

Then, there are the many titles not found on the list. How about "The Decameron", for one? "Pale Blue Dot"? "A Brief History of Time"? "Cosmos"? "The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam"?

And, I'd argue that reading should be done as much for enjoyment as for edification. So, why not some "Calvin and Hobbes"? Or "Words I Wish I Wrote"? Or some Neil Gaiman or Greg Bear or George RR Martin?

I'm not ranting at you; I agree with you 100%. Your comment just seemed like an appropriate place to attach a rant against the article. :-)

I'm sure other books like Stephen Hawking's "A Brief history of Time" would be a good starting place too, but I can't speak to that one personally yet.

Stephen Hawking notes in his book "A Brief History of Time" that we know that there aren't infinite stars because otherwise the night sky would have no patches of darkness since an infinite number of stars would imply that you could shoot out an arbitrary ray from earth and it would always reach a star.

However, black holes (lots of them!) could trap light and obscure line-of-sight stars.

All through school I never had much of an interest in biology or genetics. I think if I’d read this earlier it may have changed my mind.

Planning on reading the Blind Watchmaker at some point.

Spurred on by reading the former I thought I’d listen to A Brief History of Time. Wow that is a whole different kettle of fish. I had to stop because I realized it wasn’t the right format (Audiobook), for me at least.

> He also explained that he was able to change the accent of his computer when the technology advanced, but he decided against it.

> Hawking added: “My old system worked well and I wrote five books with it, including A Brief History Of Time.

> “It has become my trademark and I wouldn’t change it for a more natural voice with a British accent.

> “I am told that children who need a computer voice want one like mine.”

A Brief History of Time because it pretty much slapped any thoughts I had of a supernatural universe/god right out of my mind. I know it's not highly regarded, but for a rather ignorant guy, it woke me up.

The Selfish Gene (inc The Extended Phenotype). This is one I think is the most powerful, even for people that had OK education. Showing how life could possibly evolve, just with random mutations and non-random survival made it real to me that we live in a natural world. And not just that, but that since it's so obviously a natural world, it's up to us to decide what is right, what our purpose is. The earth and nature aren't going to help us there - it's our call, full stop. That is huge, and many otherwise seemingly well educated people don't seem to get it.

Heuristics and Biases. (Though Thinking Fast and Slow might be more approachable.) This book opened me up to the fact that I'm running on busted hardware. That I've got serious, unfixable, biases built into my brain. That a lot of what I do is a fast but inaccurate parallel system at work. (Interestingly, this is the essence of Taoism, wu wei).

Lately, LessWrong. (Available as a book called Rationality: From AI to Zombies). These sequences have helped me, well, get less wrong, slowly, at making decisions and general thinking. I try to be aware of when I'm being biased and incorrect. I make better predictions and actively try to update my priors, instead of just confirming my previous beliefs. As I get older (34) I find I'm unwittingly acting close minded on occasion, and need to actively work against it.

I'd read and listened to it before, but sitting there watching my brother listen to it for the first time, I realised just how clearly and succinctly Hawking mapped out the ideas and way of thinking I use to try and find my place in the universe.

I'm quite grateful I had the opportunity to read it.

I got A Brief History of Time and read it, and it's almost cliche to say so, but it changed the course of my life. It's not the only book that affected me, but it was pivotal. George Gamow's little book also was available, and some good Asimov stuff, but otherwise nothing really.

So I went to university in the big city (Saskatoon!) and studied physics, and they had a whole library of physics books! You'd think it was like heaven, but a lot of those books were crap or hard to read. Hawking showed how one can aim for a book that's interesting-and-good and actually achieve it. A few others managed to do the same. There are probably 20 actually-good and readable physics books in the whole world, and his books are a few of them.

Buddhism / Religion / ... :

- Siddartha - Hermann Hesse

- The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho

Science:

- A brief history of time - Stephen Hawking (space, time)

- The Blind Watchmaker - Richard Dawkins (evolution)

- Le cerveau intime - Marc Jeannerod (in french only)

Science-fiction:

- The Road - Cormack Mc Carthy

- City - Clifford D. Simack

- Time is the simplest thing - Clifford D. Simack

- Ringworld - Larry Niven

Try the Brown book or Mano's "Digital Design" (my preference; took a while to remember his name) and see if it works for you. Good luck.

It used to be expensive to compile massive data sets and reduce them to reliable statistical evidence, so it was easy to push concepts that had little supporting evidence. For example: "the particle passes through both slits", "the cat is alive and dead", "there are no hidden variables", "the source of an emission never ascribes state to its particles, and that state does not exist until inspected"

Now, such wild claims are in disagreement with rivers of data that are much more easily produced and reviewed computationally. Observations that were not previously possible now shed light on facts that were previously obscured. Without backing data ideas prone to confusion could take root. Particularly so, with voices of academic authority shouting down concepts that threaten the ivory tower.

But now, technology to conduct measurements is cheaper, and data shouts louder. So, something presented as fact in A Brief History of Time (the particle passes through both slits) can no longer be supported by fame alone, simply because the author is revered. It's easier produce and publish data (make high-fidelity video recordings of the behavior of silicone oil beads demonstrating pilot wave phenomena, and post on youtube).

On this example, pulling together raw data from sensor streams, and dumping into a high performance computing pipeline, reveals that diffraction itself is a state producing phenomenon, and that reliable variables are produced by the diffractor, but would be later hidden by subsequent polarizers that drive downstream state. If the hidden variables weren't reliable, there would be no possibility of composing an image from the statistical analysis of the diffraction. The diffraction would produce no reliable signal to reconstruct, because it would not exist, since local hidden variables are forbidden, behind no-go boundaries.

Perhaps the life (or death) of a black hole varies, dependent on the available matter for the black hole to consume. A black hole that never reaches that critical amount of mass required to tear through into a new dimension (or whatever the terminology for describing the event is) is doomed to dissipate via Hawkins Radiation, however a black hole that consumes enough matter to tear such a hole, ends up disappearing anyway, as it diffuses into the newly created universe?

I have no idea, nor am I qualified in any way to have an opinion. I did read 'A Brief History of Time' once though!

However, Davies book addresses a set of finer questions than the Wikipedia article. Rather than directly asking "Why can mathmatics be used to model nature?" the more probing question is "Why is there order of any sort to model in nature?". Indeed, in the preface of the book is this gem:

"If we do discover a complete theory, it should in time be understandable in broad principle by everyone, not just a few scientists. Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists, and just ordinary people, be able to take part in the discussion fo why it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason - for then we would truly know the mind of God."

-- Stephen Hawking, concluding passage of "A Brief History of Time".

A remarkable book, I recommend it.

He is right that Piketty's first book is probably just worth it for the introduction and most non-economists never read the rest, but if he cant get through A Brief History of Time then he's got other problems. Hawking made that book very readable and accessible!

Examples of the books I am talking about are: The Black Swan, Brief History of Time, God Delusion, Selfish Gene, Predictibly Irrational, etc. etc.

But at the same time this is starting to seem daunting... how long would it take to go through all this material on a part-time basis? Well, my original plan was to do it after I semi-retire.

(Now that I live in Cambridge, I should really go and try to mee T.W. Körner.)

From the author's website (http://www.dpmms.cam.ac.uk/~twk/):

"Next let me remind you that The Pleasures of Counting is still available from all good bookshops. Longer than `With Rod and Line Through the Gobi Desert', funnier than `The Wit and Wisdom of the German General Staff' and with more formulae than `A Brief History of Time' it was voted Book of the Year by a panel consisting of Mrs E. Körner, Mrs W. Körner, Miss K. Körner and Dr A. Altman (née Körner)."

Everything then made sense. All the inconsistencies you hear about economics, with one camp saying one idea and another talking about something totally different, both passing it off as consensus, fit into place.

TLDR: Cassidy's book is in 2 parts. The first part, he constructs the classical/rational model of economics through intellectual history. The second part, he deconstructs, drawing from all the critiques of inefficiency, both behavioral and mathematical. (Some of the most fascinating aspects are the beautiful mathematical models that can't be solved). It's all well written prose, no need to have a pen and calculator to follow along.

The title is misleading IMHO, because it seems to be a populist polemical. It's not. It should be called something like "A Brief History of Economics", echoing Hawkin's Brief History of Time.

Relativity deals with so much gravity that spacetime is warped.

Neither is appropriate for the other and they are on opposite sides of the spectrum. Classical physics is useful in the middle at "human" scale.

What would be nice is a simple theory that covers it all. Nothing we currently have is able to stretch to be useful in all situations.

Sean Carroll's _The Big Picture_ was useful for me, as was the older _A Brief History Of Time_ by Stephen Hawking

I feel like I have a context for understanding electrons and protons. I have read A Brief History of Time. What do I read next in order to have this article not sound like mumbo jumbo?

Nearby shelf:
The Design of Everyday Things,
Maverick,
Founders at work,
A Brief History of Time,
A Pattern Language,
Peopleware,
Made to stick,
Web Standards Solutions,
Designing Interactions,
The Pragmatic Programmer,
The Mythical Man-Month,
Oh, the Places You'll Go!

Other good reads:
Blink,
Tipping Point,
Long Tail,
Freakonomics

How well read was Wiener actually though? The historian Ronald Kline compares these books to the status of Steven Hawkins' Brief History of Time upon its release. The books anyone invested in intellectual development needed /to show/ they had a copy of, rather than one they exactly made it through cover to cover.

Do you truly believe that specific DP book caused that effect?

I don't. The DP book is extremely dry reading and most programmers have not actually read it. ([In terms of readership/ownership ratio] It's a book like Stephen Hawking's "Brief History of Time" ... everybody knows about it and some might have it on the coffee table but very few actually read it.)

I do think the _phrase_ of "design patterns" (not the book) has become a sort of gravitational force such that any discussion about "overcomplicated design" seems to fall toward that particular phrase. Or put differently, "bad designs" is now a synonym of "design patterns" so much so such that you can't even say "design pattern" and have it be interpreted as a neutral term. It's become a trigger word.

>Which would be entirely accurate if script writers were widely using TVTropes pages as templates and creating bad scripts

Yes, I agree that would be equivalent. However, I don't think the existence of tvtropes compels directors like Michael Bay to repeat the "walk away calmly from explosion in the background" scene. The motivation to repeat that "cinematic pattern" comes from somewhere else. Likewise, the majority of bad/overcomplicated abstractions in source code come from somewhere else besides that particular DP book.

The question does not currently have a definitive answer. Although current mathematical analysis has in falling matter being dismantled at the sub-atomic level as it undergoes the tidal stresses associated with gravity. Basically if you were standing at the event horizon the pull on your feet would be several billion times the pull on your head.

The confounding factor is that if you're falling into a black hole the acceleration can get your velocity to nearly light speed, and at that velocity your perception of time slows, to the point of nearly stopping. So while people watching you fall in might see a burst of xrays as your physical being converted into energy, "you" might perceive nothing at all, simply that time stopped (which is really not something you can perceive) followed by your non-existence (which depending on your theology either has you returning you energy to the entropy of the universe or a visit with your deity and/or anti-deity if there a judgement step.)

Most theories do not currently postulate a 'far side' of a black hole, mostly because "hole" is a metaphor rather than a physical description of the object. In theory its really just a point where the numbers go out of whack because the equations have a divide by zero error there. This too is what fascinates a lot of people, the universe sets up this problem where it gets to divide by zero. A bit of calculus, a bit of fudging with infinities of both the positive and negative variety, and your guess is as good as anyone else's at this point.

Fun to think about though.

Now I was 14, and it would still be a few years before I first would read 'A Brief History of Time' and so I knew nothing of string theory, but, I somehow knew, on some basic instinctual level that I was being misled in that moment, that just because the teacher could not "imagine" higher dimensions did not in and of itself mean that there could not possibly be higher dimensions in theory. Looking back, that was the start of a distrust in me with regards to the academic "establishment" which has continued in varying degrees to this very day. It is one of those epistemological moments of clarity: once one realizes it is possible to be misled by a teacher, which one naturally is conditioned to trust, then really who else could possibly mislead one? What sources can after all be trusted? Once one realizes the inherent fallibility of everyone, including one's teachers, then things just are not quite the same ever again, there is a certain loss of innocence there which can never be gotten back.

Just halved the audience.

When I read this I think of Hawking, "A Brief History of Time" & the advice his editor to remove equations. Does the same hold for Comp Science references? (Must resist the urge to talk CS in main-street press. Must resist the urge to talk CS in main-street press...)

Plus, I may be missing something, but what's the difference between the self-indexical principle and the anthropic principle?