Brief Answers to the Big Questions Book Summary

Book Summary

15 min

Brief Summary

Humanity has relied on science to provide the answers to life’s fundamental questions. Hawking has attempted to provide insight into the world’s big questions, such as the origins of the universe, the existence of other life forms, the future of technology, and the survival of humanity. The universe is subjected to a series of fundamental natural laws, which govern everything around us. However, there is still much in the universe that remains a mystery, such as the possibility for time travel, the ability to predict the future, or the information paradox of black holes. Space exploration may be the best option for the future of humanity, while Artificial Intelligence may be humanity’s downfall if the ethics of creating superintelligent AI are not seriously considered now. A strong scientific understanding of the origins and life on our universe is the most important tool for helping humanity continue to grow and thrive.

About the Author

Stephen Hawking was a theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author of the bestseller A Brief History of Time. He was the former research director at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology, the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, and a notable public figure in popular culture.

Hawking was educated at University College, Oxford, and received his PhD in applied mathematics and theoretical physics from Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He made significant contributions to the field of quantum gravity and quantum mechanics, particularly to the understanding of black holes.

Hawking passed away in March of 2018. This book was published posthumously.

Topics

Science Philosophy

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Key Insights

Science and religion both seek to explain fundamental questions about the origins and meaning of life. However, they are often at odds with each other. Before many advanced scientific concepts were understood, God was used to explaining the most natural phenomena. Up until the 1960s, most scientists argued that the universe had always existed, and had no beginning and would have no end. The other alternative was to explain the origin of the universe using religion.

However, Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity revolutionized the way scientists understood the universe. Einstein discovered that space and time are not constants, but are changed and affected by matter and energy. Therefore, time and space are reliant on a universe to exist, which means there must have also been a time before the universe existed. The universe is also steadily expanding outward, which seems to indicate that it began from a single point and then continued expanding over time.

Humanity’s understanding of the universe advanced further when singularities were discovered. Singularities are a point where time and space cease to exist after the death of a star, and they are found in the center of black holes. Black holes, caused by collapsing stars, have a gravitational pull that is so strong that they pull all information and matter, including light, into them. Primordial black holes date back to the formation of the universe. Hawking believed that if primordial black holes could be located, they could explain much about the origins of the universe.

Although there are many theories explaining the origins of the universe, no scientists currently know for sure how the universe began. Understanding the origins of life is essential to understanding and predicting what might happen in the future, and how to ensure humanity’s continued survival as a species.

The Big Bang And The Spontaneous Formation of the Universe

When the universe began, it was a dense point that was even smaller than a proton. The scientist Edwin Hubble discovered that the universe is constantly expanding and that all galaxies are moving away from each other. Therefore, there must have been a point in time when galaxies were extremely close together, possibly occupying a single dense point, called a singularity.

While material objects cannot appear out of anywhere, quantum physics shows that protons have the ability to appear and disappear spontaneously. The universe was likely formed in a similar way, with no specific cause setting it off. Einstein’s theory of relativity helped to prove this by discovering space and time were not constant and unchangeable, but rather woven into the interconnected fabric of space-time. Space-time can be warped by massive objects that exert extremely high levels of gravity, which can sometimes cause the time to stop. When the cosmos was only a small, dense singularity, time did not exist. Therefore, there could be no cause for the formation of the universe because time itself did not yet exist. The Big Bang was a random spontaneous occurrence.

While protons may appear spontaneously, complex living beings cannot materialize out of...