Hawking's Brief History of Time 1990 -- still worth reading?

[Extollager]

I inherited a copy of a 1990 paperback of Hawking's book. By far I read more fiction and history than science (including popular science). I have often seen this book mentioned. For a decided nonspecialist, is this still by and large worth reading, or is it seriously outdated enough that I might as well not bother?

 

[Ori Vandewalle]

That's one I've never gotten around to reading, but I imagine the only parts that are likely to be outdated are the bits about the fate of the universe. Measurements of the density of the universe weren't all that precise at that point, and dark energy hadn't been discovered yet.

Oh, also, that book is probably where he uses an unfortunately misleading analogy to explain what's going on with Hawking radiation. A lot's been written about better ways to understand Hawking radiation, which you can probably find just by googling that.

 

[paranoid marvin]

That's one I've never gotten around to reading, but I imagine the only parts that are likely to be outdated are the bits about the fate of the universe. Measurements of the density of the universe weren't all that precise at that point, and dark energy hadn't been discovered yet.

Oh, also, that book is probably where he uses an unfortunately misleading analogy to explain what's going on with Hawking radiation. A lot's been written about better ways to understand Hawking radiation, which you can probably find just by googling that.

Although there is an awful lot of guesswork and conjecture involved. It's entirely possible that current thinking could come full circle back to Hawking's ideas.

You could almost write a book on the 'discovery' of dark of dark matter; a substance that has not been analysed or seen, but (supposedly) makes up most of the known universe. It seems like it is being used as a convenient excuse to explain everything that doesn't make sense. Like a modern equivalent of map-maker's 'here be dragons'.