this surprisingly relaxed and enjoyable collection of essays by Hawking didn't make me feel one bit stupid. not one bit! and i am a real dolt when it comes to much of science in general and physics in particular. thank you Hawking for not talking down to me and presenting your rich, dense pie of ideas in a way that was perfectly palatable.there are a couple of pleasant, unpretentious essays on Hawking's personal life and history (noticeably absent in his prior bestseller) and his general thoughts on life - including some amusing comments on his computer voice's distinctly american accent. and there are some fun, bitchy barbs aimed at his own personal nemeses - "philosophers of science" (...failed physicists who found it too hard to invent new theories and so took to writing about the philosophy of physics instead. They are still arguing about the scientific theories of the early years of this century, like relativity and quantum mechanics. They are not in touch with the present frontier of physics.) perhaps that sounds harsh, particularly coming from a theoretical physicist. but apparently these dastardly Philosophers of Science have been hounding him for years, simply due to his own resistance to fitting his approach and ideas into a single, known school of thought (i.e. as nominalist or instumentalist or positivist or realist, etc... most of which have absolutely no meaning to me). go get 'em, Hawking!
the above paragraph describes only a handful of the essays. the rest are almost entirely concerned with explaining black holes, baby universe, the 4 basic interactions (strong nuclear force, weak nuclear force, electromagnetism, and - the weakest of all - our old friend gravity); concepts such as "imaginary time"; the continued relevance of quantum mechanics; and especially Hawkings' pursuit of a "Grand Unified Theory". Hawkings' work (and this collection) is overtly driven by his desire to finally create this "theory of everything" - one that will at long last lay bare the inner workings of the universe, where we have been, where we are going, how it all connects and what it is all about. is there a greater goal for a theoretical physicist? i really don't know. but this drive really gave me the impression of Hawking being one of the world's Great Men, a man who contemplates the finite and the infinite on a casual basis and whose quest in life is not so much based in ego (although that is there) but in helping to raise humanity to the next level. whatever that level may be.
one might think that God has no place in all of this. well, one would be wrong. God seems to be very much on Hawking's mind. his quest is, in a way, a striving to understand 'the mind of God'. fascinating! here are some of his thoughts on this topic:
"It is now generally accepted that the universe evolves according to well-defined laws. These laws may have been ordained by God, but it seems that He does not intervene in the universe to break the laws. Until recently, however, it was thought that these laws did not apply to the beginning of the universe. It would be up to God to wind up the clockwork and set the universe going in any way He wanted. Thus, the present state of the universe would be the result of God's choice of the initial conditions.
The situation would be very different, however, if something like the no-boundary proposal were correct. In that case the laws of physics would hold even at the beginning of the universe, so God would not have had the freedom to choose the initial conditions. Of course, He would still have been free to choose the laws that the universe obeyed. However, this may not have been much of a choice. There may only be a small number of laws, which are self-consistent and which lead to complicated beings like ourselves who can ask the question: What is the nature of God?
And if there is only one unique set of possible laws, it is only a set of equations. What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to govern? is the ultimate unified theory so compelling that it brings about its own existence? Although science may solve the problem of how the universe began, it cannot answer the question: Why does the universe bother to exist?"
rather strange to find this kind of discussion within a book concerned with theoretical physics. but Hawking makes it not so strange; if anything, his mind illustrates its own kind of Grand Unified Theory. he connects so many things, without ever rambling - on a personal level, on a theoretical level, on a purely scientific level. he writes eloquently and passionately about his thoughts on God, on determinism vs. free will, on various moments in history, on so much... and on his favorite records! what an awesome mind. what a man!
he also answers this timeless question, posed by Sue from Desert Island Discs:
Sue: What would happen if you fell into a black hole?
Stephen: You get made into spaghetti.
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