From one of our greatest living scientists, a magnificent book that provides, for the serious lay reader, the most comprehensive and sophisticated account we have yet had of the physical universe and the essentials of its underlying mathematical theory. Since the earliest efforts of the ancient Greeks to find order amid the chaos around us, there has been continual accelerated progress toward understanding the laws that govern our universe. And the particularly important advances made by means of the revolutionary theories of relativity and quantum mechanics have deeply altered our vision of the cosmos and provided us with models of unprecedented accuracy. What Roger Penrose so brilliantly accomplishes in this book is threefold. First, he gives us an overall narrative description of our present understanding of the universe and its physical behaviors–from the unseeable, minuscule movement of the subatomic particle to the journeys of the planets and the stars in the vastness of time and space. Second, he evokes the extraordinary beauty that lies in the mysterious and profound relationships between these physical behaviors and the subtle mathematical ideas that explain and interpret them. Third, Penrose comes to the arresting conclusion–as he explores the compatibility of the two grand classic theories of modern physics–that Einstein’s general theory of relativity stands firm while quantum theory, as presently constituted, still needs refashioning. Along the way, he talks about a wealth of issues, controversies, and phenomena; about the roles of various kinds of numbers in physics, ideas of calculus and modern geometry, visions of infinity, the big bang, black holes, the profound challenge of the second law of thermodynamics, string and M theory, loop quantum gravity, twistors, and educated guesses about science in the near future. In The Road to Reality he has given us a work of enormous scope, intention, and achievement–a complete and essential work of science 从古希腊人探寻我们身边的秩序与混沌的最早期的努力开始，人们对支配着我们生活的宇宙的法则的理解也在不断加速。而通过相对论与量子力学这样的革命性理论而取得的重要进展，已经深刻地改变了我们观察宇宙的视野。在这本书中，作者Roger Penrose首先对我们目前对宇宙的理解给出一个全面的概述，从我们看不到的亚原子粒子的微小运动到漫天星斗的运行。在物质的世界与用以解释和描述它们的微妙的数理概念之间存在一种关系，揭示这一关系中所呈现的美是作者接下来要做的事。在此基础上，作者又进而对现有的理论加以思考。依着这一思路，他在此书讨论了大量的问题、争论以及现象，不仅是前面提到的相对论，还包括正诱惑着科学家们智慧的膜理论等。作者彭罗斯早已为中国读者所熟悉，他曾于1988年与霍金共同分享当年授予物理学家的沃尔夫奖。他的作品《皇帝新脑》、《时空本性》（与霍金合著）此前曾在我国翻译出版。来自《星期天泰晤士报》的评论说，彭罗斯的书揭示了纠结在自然与人类想像力之间的美与精妙之处。

Book Description "A Brief History of Time", published in 1988, has been a landmark volume in scientific writing and in worldwide acclaim and popularity, with more than nine million copies sold. That edition was on the cutting edge of what was then known about the nature of the universe. Since its publication, however, there have been extraordinary advances in the technology of observing both the micro- and the macrocosmic world, confirming many of Professor Hawking's predictions. Eager to bring to his original text the new knowledge revealed by these observations, Hawking has written a new introduction, updated chapters throughout, and added an entirely new chapter on Wormholes and Time Travel. "A Brief History of Time" has guided nonscientists everywhere to confront the supreme questions of the nature of time and the universe, taking them to distant galaxies, black holes, alternate dimensions — as close as man has ever ventured to the mind of God. This anniversary edition makes vividly clear why Professor Hawking's eloquent classic has transformed our view of the universe. Amazon.com Stephen Hawking, one of the most brilliant theoretical physicists in history, wrote the modern classic A Brief History of Time to help nonscientists understand the questions being asked by scientists today: Where did the universe come from? How and why did it begin? Will it come to an end, and if so, how? Hawking attempts to reveal these questions (and where we're looking for answers) using a minimum of technical jargon. Among the topics gracefully covered are gravity, black holes, the Big Bang, the nature of time, and physicists' search for a grand unifying theory. This is deep science; these concepts are so vast (or so tiny) as to cause vertigo while reading, and one can't help but marvel at Hawking's ability to synthesize this difficult subject for people not used to thinking about things like alternate dimensions. The journey is certainly worth taking, for, as Hawking says, the reward of understanding the universe may be a glimpse of "the mind of God." --Therese Littleton From Library Journal A new edition?with pictures?for those who couldn't fathom the original. About Author Stephen Hawking, who was born on the anniversary of Galileo's death in 1942, holds Isaac Newton's chair as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge. Widely regarded as the most brilliant theoretical physicist since Einstein, he is also the author of Black Holes and Baby Universes, a collection of essays published in 1993, as well as numerous scientific papers and books. Book Dimension : length: (cm)22.8 　　　 　　　　　 　 width:(cm)15.5 点击链接进入中文版： 时间简史(插图本) 注：该书有2个封面内容完全一致，货品随机发送

"One boggles at the thought of the stupendous work ...that has gone into the book. It deserves an honored place in what promises to be one of the great stages of advance in the physics of the cosmos." Contemporary Physics

"The standard work in the fundamental principles of quantum mechanics, indispensable both to the advanced student and to the mature research worker, who will always find it a fresh source of knowledge and stimulation." --Nature "This is the classic text on quantum mechanics. No graduate student of quantum theory should leave it unread"--W.C Schieve, University of Texas

Covers the theory of electromagnetic fields in matter, and the theory of macroscopic electric and magnetic properties of matter. There is a considerable amount of new material particularly on the theory of the magnetic properties of matter and the theory of optical phenomena with new chapters on spatial dispersion and non-linear optics.

This is the most comprehensive introductory graduate or advanced undergraduate text in fluid mechanics available. It builds up from the fundamentals, often in a general way, to widespread applications, to technology and geophysics. New to this second edition are discussions on the universal dimensions similarity scaling for the laminar boundary layer equations and on the generalized vector field derivatives. In addition, new material on the generalized streamfunction treatment shows how streamfunction may be used in three-dimensional flows. Finally, a new Computational Fluid Dynamics chapter enables compulations of some simple flows and provides entry to more advanced literature. This book gives basic introduction to the subject of fluid mechanics, intended for undergraduate and beginning graduate students of science and engineering. It includes topics of special interest for geophysicists and to engineers. It presents new and generalized treatment of similar laminar boundary layers, streamfunctions for three-dimensional flows, vector field derivatives, and gas dynamics, along with a new generalized treatment of boundary conditions in fluid mechanics, and expanded treatment of viscous flows.