Master of The Universe

A Brief History of Time: From Big Bang to Black Holes by Stephen Hawking
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Master of the Universe

I was encouraged to read A Brief History Of Time following a viewing of the film “The Theory of Everything”, a wonderful evocation of the lives of Stephen Hawking and his first wife, Jane Wilde. Eddie Redmayne’s portrayal of Hawking was breathtaking with wonderful support from Felicity Jones as Jane.

Reading the book took me on a journey that I had not before seriously contemplated. The origin of our universe. The prediction that space-time began at the big bang singularity before which ‘time’ did not exist and if our universe was ‘created’ did God create the universe. Hawking poses the question: “If God created the universe who or what created God?”

There is much here to get your head around. Heisenberg’s famous uncertainty principle, Planck’s quantum principle, black holes, wormholes and time travel, the arrow of time and the unification of physics.

There is much to enjoy and much to confound the average reader (like me) but if you wish to learn more about cosmological physics then A Brief History of Time, with its engaging combination of clarity and wit, should be on your ‘to read’ list.

The Los Angeles Times summed up: “A high-priest of physics, one of a handful of theorists who may be on the verge of reading God’s mind”. Amen to that....

View all my reviews

The Endless River

I have been a fan of the prog-rock band Pink Floyd for 42 years ever since I purchased on vinyl in 1972 their seminal work ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’, an album I still play today. Like so many PF fans I anguished over the loss of Syd Barrett, the breakdown of the relationship between Roger Waters and the rest of the group, which was terrible, and the sad death of Rick Wright who died of cancer in 2008. And despite all of this I have remained enchanted with this band for over more than four decades. I will continue to play their music that still fills me with a sense of wonder.

 There is a kind of poetry to the fact that with Waters long gone, the new album The Endless River - Pink Floyd’s first studio outing in two decades - is a tribute to Rick Wright. For me, this is a cathartic work - the sum is greater than the parts. It packs a great deal into 53 minutes. The album features Wright heavily. He was back on board for 1994’s The Division Bell and it is from the sessions for that album that the material for this one has been taken. Fans of PF will recognize Wright’s keyboard magic, Mason’s tight drum playing and, above all, the emotional guitar of Gilmour, which at times cries out and brings tears to your eyes. The track ‘It’s What We Do’ comes across like a quiet composite of ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond’. I listen with a lump in my throat. Nick Mason works up a fast tattoo on the track ‘Skins”, two minutes of echo and atmospherics that leaves me breathless. Stephen Hawking reprises his talk about language that he did on The Division Bell - ‘keep talking’. I am moved once again by these words.

 The closing track ‘Louder Than Words‘ has lyrics written by Gilmour’s wife, Polly Samson. It’s about bitching and fighting, making up and carrying on. Quite fitting for this band that has had its fair share of conflict and turbulence.

 Nick Mason and David Gilmour have said that this will be Pink Floyd’s last. I have already played this album six times and I am full of emotion. This is it. This is the final cut, Roger, not yours.

The words of Matthew Arnold in his epic poem ‘Dover Beach’ echo through my mind:

 ‘I feel the melancholy roar of the withdrawing tide...’

 Withdraw you might Pink Floyd but your music will live on. For me - forever....