A Brief History of Time Summary (Animated) — Understand How Time, Science, and the Universe Work

This is a summary of the book A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking.

0:00 - Introduction
1:11 - Top 3 Lessons
1:28 - Lesson 1: Theories can never be fully proven.
3:15 - Lesson 2: Due to the constant speed of light, time is not fixed.
4:29 - Lesson 3: Time can most likely only move forward, for 3 reasons.
6:13 - Outro

A New York Times Bestseller, A Brief History of Time is a landmark volume in science writing by one of the great minds of our time, Stephen Hawking. The book explores such profound questions as: How did the universe begin—and what made its start possible? Does time always flow forward? Is the universe unending—or are there boundaries? Are there other dimensions in space? What will happen when it all ends?

Our animated book summary of A Brief History Of Time is Stephen Hawking’s way of explaining the most complex concepts and ideas of physics, such as space, time, black holes, planets, stars and gravity to the average Joe, so that even you and I can better understand how our planet was created, where it came from, and where it’s going.

Four Minute Books is a collection of over 1,000 free book summaries, each of which draws 3 lessons from one of the world's best books. Get smarter in 4 minutes or less!

[DanialZh]

wow this was amazing, I read the book twice but this was amazing to watch.

[joelstewart]

Does the 0 gravity and incredibly fast time at the center of the sun cause it to be unimaginably hot? Could that also explain why the Earth's core remains so hot?

[maxalp]

I assume that what you actually meant to explain at 4:04 is that, hypothetically, if one person were to be able to travel towards a ray of light at a speed that's approximately as fast as the speed of light itself and would find itself at a distance of 186000 miles away from that ray of light at t=0 and a second person was at a fixed position respectively 186000 miles away from the ray of light. Then it would take 1 second for the ray of light to reach the second person but only half a second to reach the first person. Thus it would reach the first person twice as fast. Correct? However, this statement is ofcourse in contradiction with the second postulate of the special relativity theorem which you do point out in the video. But,
in your exemplary situation at 4:04 you're not providing the speed at which these two persons are travelling towards/away from the ray of light nor do you provide an explanation/description of the mathematics that would support the "two seconds" difference. You only mention the speed of light and the distance (in miles, so you're not talking about their speed) over which the persons are travelling and in which direction (relative to the observer and ray of light). You simply state that person number one is travelling 186000 miles towards the ray of light and person number two is travelling 186000 miles away from the ray of light. I don't think your description of events/situation, nor its deducted conclusion of a two second difference, is correct. Although, as I said, I do think I understand/know what you actually meant to explain. 😅

[dmlebeau]

A Brief History of Time will not defeat Wu Tang Clan.

[victorsubbiah]

please explain me the title of this book and its connection with the content?

[ricksharonblumenthal]

Good stuff! Beyond most of us I guess, but fascinating anyway!

[gadooze]

New sub here; thanks for the amazing work.

[baronbolanos]

The fact that I understood none of this is bothering me 😭

[linux_b]

2:29 And then the government invented birds?

[whatslifespurpose]

2:33 Nothing heavier than air can fly. Dah have you seen birds?

[MT-]

Love the content not the cringe characters, very distracting.

[veronicasawyer]

Wdym theories can't be proven lol ?
Theories can definitely be proven alright

[indethbed]

You are confusing theory with hypothesis. Theory is proven and its objective fact