How does our universe really work? Where did we really come from and where are we going? The answer is actually more complex than you would think, according to Stephen Hawking, world renowned theoretical physicist, and author of A Breifer History of Time. In A Breifer History of Time, Stephen Hawking offers a simple explanation to the common person about complex theories about our universe. He is able to dumb these complex theories down for us through the use diagrams and analogy, which help the reader to understand.
Although usually scholarly works offer no more than one bland diagram, Hawking takes another route in A Breifer History of Time. For example, when explaining the Relativity of Distance, it is hard to illustrate the idea with only the use of words. Therefore, Hawking includes pictures to go along with his written examples so the reader can comprehend the topic more. There is a picture with a person on a train bouncing a ping pong ball. To them, it looks like the ball moved only a couple inches from hand to table to hand, but to an observer outside, it looks like the ball moved forty feet because the ball was on the train moving as well (I could not find the actual picture online). These pictures are rhetorical devices because they are used to forward Hawking’s purpose, which is to educate the general public on important scientific theories; and through these pictures, the reader is able to comprehend them.
Not only do pictures aid in reader comprehension, but in addition to that, Hawking includes well crafted analogies. Intellegently crafted either before or after the introduction of a new theory, these analogies also help the reader to comprehend complex theories. For example, in the “Curved Space” chapter, when discussing uniform gravitational fields, Hawking compared gravity from a uniform field and gravity from acceleration to an elevator. He says that when “you are accelerating, everything that happens inside the elevator will unfold exactly as it would if the elevator was not moving at all but at rest in a uniform gravitational field” (Hawking 45). Although this complex theory, the principle of equivalence, is hard to explain with the scientific terms, the analogy to the elevator connects the principle to something the common person can conceptualize. Therefore, Hawking is able to make sense and teach his readers.
So far, Hawking has achieved his purpose with a great amount of craft, because as a reader I am able to understand theories probably way over my head when he offers visuals and analogies, for me, the common peasant (compared to Hawking’s intelligence) to understand.
(Source)
[Not Hawking's picture of the principle of equivalence, or relativity of distance, but the only picture form the book online]
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