In Review

21 November 2008 22:09 BST

God Created The Integers by Stephen Hawking

Published by Penguin, out September 14th, paperback, 1160pp, £14.99.

In a nutshell…

Revolutionary discoveries. Detail. Analysis. Maths. Lots of it.

What's it all about?

A brief biographical history introduces each mathematician before Hawking swiftly delves into the good stuff – what their work was all about and how it fits into the mathematical canon.

After this lightning guide to each man’s magnum opus, the reader is presented with a selection of their seminal text(s) which are annotated by both the original translator and Hawking himself.

The Lucasian Professor of Mathematics does not hold back on the detail – every possible theoretical quibble is dealt with in the, rather extensive, annotations.

Who's it by?

Born in Oxford, exactly 300 years to the day after the death of Galileo, Stephen Hawking has been Cambridge University's Lucasian Professor of Mathematics since the age of 37 – a post reserved for the greatest mathematicians of the age, and was once held by Sir Issac Newton.

Hawking has suffered from motor neurone disease since shortly after his 21st birthday and was only given a couple of years to live. Defying science, he lived on but since 1985 has needed 24-hour medical care. Despite this, the disease did not restrict his meteoric success as he became known as the most brilliant theoretical physicist since Einstein.

His research has led to the unification of two of the century's most important theories, General Relativity and Quantum Theory and he is a specialist in black holes.

A Brief History of Time, Hawking's most famous book, has sold 100 million copies in 40 languages.

As an example…

At its most accessible: "Newton set out to discover the cause of the planets' elliptical orbits. By applying his own law of centripetal force to Kepler's third law of planetary motion, (the law of harmonies) he deduced the inverse square law, which states that the force of gravity between any two objects is inversely proportional to the square of the distance between the object's centres."

Likelihood of becoming a Hollywood blockbuster

For the maths student, this book is likely, in time, to become an important text that will sit on bookshelves in libraries and teachers' offices around the world as a handy anthology for those dedicated to the subject.

Among the rest of us, I dare say it will sell well – as Hawking's books tend to – but is likely to – as Hawking's books also tend to – become an unread bestseller.

What the others say

Fernando Q Gouvea, Mathematical Association of America, says that the selection of mathematicians (none between the ancient Greeks and Descartes) is "weirdly lopsided" as "there is nothing on statistics". He concludes: "I don’t think that publishers of the other sourcebooks need to worry about the competition from this one."

Amazon reviews generally appreciated the ambition and the usefulness of the "inspired project of a great genius of the 20th century" but rail against the baffling decision not to include an index.

So is it any good?

Hawking has two possible audiences available to him, but unfortunately this tome fails to wholly satisfy either of them.

First, the ordinary reader. Although the aim of the book is a good one – to squeeze the most important mathematical texts into one easy volume – the execution fails, because it is far too complex for the occasional peruser of the subject. Obviously, to appreciate such intellectual delicacies requires a long term diet of learning, but Hawking often jumps from the challengingly interesting to the abstruse within the space of a paragraph.

Second, the mathematician. A worrying number of reviewers on Amazon.com have noticed that some pages of complex equations are littered with typos. Unfortunately, denying or affirming this is beyond the intellectual might of this reviewer, but if true, the book's status as a reputable anthology will clearly be undermined. To the assiduous mathematician, this must be like reading Shakespeare printed with the wrong words.

Even so, when he is at his strongest, Hawking is enthralling as he relates the discoveries not only to each other but to contemporary philosophy, which reminds the reader that maths was and has always been, a keystone as to how we view the world.

As such, criticising a man of Hawking's stature for publishing errors in such a virtuous project, which aims to do nothing more than aid those interested in maths, feels a bit like knocking Nelson Mandela for his youthful support of violence. But the faults remain and fans should not just buy into the name.

Wait for the second edition – which will hopefully have that all-important index.

6/10

Kevin Crowley

"I am currently a ninth grade student. This book boosted my interest in in mathematics. Even though I do not fully understand 90 per cent of the book (and I'm only on page 14), I fully appreciate the fact that a great person like Stephen Hawking himself would spend time writing books such as these to help the next generation understand mathematics better. Thank you." - Kelvin Wu

"And I have started reading this book. It's a mathematical gem." - Lothar Patten