On the Origin of Time
Stephen Hawking's Final Theory
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4.2 • 42 Ratings
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Stephen Hawking’s closest collaborator offers the intellectual superstar’s final thoughts on the cosmos—a dramatic revision of the theory he put forward in A Brief History of Time.
“This superbly written book offers insight into an extraordinary individual, the creative process, and the scope and limits of our current understanding of the cosmos.”—Lord Martin Rees
Perhaps the biggest question Stephen Hawking tried to answer in his extraordinary life was how the universe could have created conditions so perfectly hospitable to life. In order to solve this mystery, Hawking studied the big bang origin of the universe, but his early work ran into a crisis when the math predicted many big bangs producing a multiverse—countless different universes, most of which would be far too bizarre to harbor life.
Holed up in the theoretical physics department at Cambridge, Stephen Hawking and his friend and collaborator Thomas Hertog worked on this problem for twenty years, developing a new theory of the cosmos that could account for the emergence of life. Peering into the extreme quantum physics of cosmic holograms and venturing far back in time to our deepest roots, they were startled to find a deeper level of evolution in which the physical laws themselves transform and simplify until particles, forces, and even time itself fades away. This discovery led them to a revolutionary idea: The laws of physics are not set in stone but are born and co-evolve as the universe they govern takes shape. As Hawking’s final days drew near, the two collaborators published their theory, which proposed a radical new Darwinian perspective on the origins of our universe.
On the Origin of Time offers a striking new vision of the universe’s birth that will profoundly transform the way we think about our place in the order of the cosmos and may ultimately prove to be Hawking’s greatest legacy.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This provocative if dense debut by Hertog, a cosmologist and longtime collaborator of Stephen Hawking, outlines the complex perspective the two developed on the origin of the universe. "Stephen and I came to see the big bang not only as the beginning of time but also as the origin of physical laws," he relates, explaining that the rules of physics developed "in a process of random variation and selection akin to Darwinian evolution." The author posits that the nature of atomic and subatomic particles as well as the values of physical constants are the products of random events that occurred at and around the big bang, rather than reflections of absolute laws. Expanding on this idea, Hertog delineates Hawking's "top-down philosophy," which builds on the observation that quantum behavior depends on observation and proposes that physics doesn't exist independent of human measurement and observation: "We create the universe as much as the universe creates us." This is primarily theoretical so the claims remain unproven, but Hertog's visionary ideas have the potential to upend traditional notions of causality and physical laws, though lay readers will struggle to follow the technical explorations of string theory and holography. Still, those who stick around through the complicated physics will be rewarded with a bold and stimulating take on the fundamentals of the universe.
Customer Reviews
Profound
A difficult read for a layman, even one versed in many of physic’s fundamentals. That said, it’s profoundly worth the effort put for in reading and understanding what’s communicated. I’ll now start my second foray thru it. Probably won’t be my last.
Quantum universe
Profound, complex and invigorating, this book offers a promise for our future should we abide by Hawking’s top-down cosmology.