Hey guys today
We are talking about a brief history of time by Stephen Hawking this book is almost 30 years old
it- when it first came out it sat on bestseller lists for
237 weeks that's almost five years
So what is this book about?
It's more complicated than what I'm going to say
But in a nutshell there were two main branches of physics being developed in the 20th century
One of which is the theory of general relativity and the other one being quantum mechanics
So the theory of general relativity deals with the laws that govern very very large
structures like planets stars
galaxies very very large cosmological structures and quantum mechanics deals with the very very small
Laws that govern atoms and subatomic
Particles and in a brief history of time Stephen Hawking discusses a grand unified theory the idea behind a grand unified
Theory, is that there are laws that can connect
general relativity and quantum mechanics
This is also sometimes called the theory of everything so if you saw that movie you're totally already familiar with this
This book is supposed to be geared towards the layperson you are not supposed to need any kind of background in
Theoretical astrophysics to be able to find this book accessible
scrolling through the reviews on Goodreads
Clearly that was you know more true for some people and less true for others
I know for me personally
I found Hawking's discussion on thermodynamics to be especially strong and accessible
Basically an explanation of why chaos is increasing in the same direction that the universe is expanding?
And I found Hawking's explanation of strong nuclear force basically why-
Laws that hold protons and neutrons in an atomic nuclei together. I was a little bit like yeah
I don't I don't know what you're saying Stevie
but
this book is one of the books most likely to be purchased and
then never actually read so if you are even giving this book a try you should give yourself a
Pat on the back for reading it and I do think there will be something in that
That you will be able to benefit from and something I did really like is that you get a very good overview of kind of
Who's who the on the scene of astrophysics
During the time that this book was written. Hawking does let us into his personal thoughts a little bit
Just is just a tiny window not too much, but he talks about this kind of special connection
he feels what Sir Isaac Newton which I thought was really interesting so Sir Isaac Newton held the exact same mathematics chair position at
Cambridge University
That Hawking held almost 300 years later, and I would actually say probably more than anyone else
Hawking seems to see himself
Standing on the shoulders of Albert Einstein and really building off of the legacy that Einstein's life work
left behind. He does talk about
His thoughts on God and the creation of the universe in this book
And he kind of tempers his own thoughts with Einsteins. He kind of presents- You know - several views so
Hawking's thoughts on this has kind of seemed to have waffled a bit throughout the years
This book is thirty years old at this point, but in this book
The position that he landed on honest frankly I didn't understand it
He what he says is that the universe is finite?
But had no beginning. He thinks that it always was
kind of moving away from the big bang theory
And the reason I don't understand that is because in my brain which greated Hawking is smarter than me
But it seems like if there's no beginning. It should be infinite so I think it's a semantics issue
I'm not sure what exactly he means by finite, but he does have a quote here
Okay, so he says if the universe is really completely self-contained
Having no boundary or edge. It would have neither beginning nor end. It would simply be
What place then for creator? And he does seem to land in a spot where he doesn't think that there was a moment of creation.
But he tempers that he says he's not ruling out intelligent design
I don't feel like he was belittling it and he includes a statement from Albert Einstein that says
Einstein never accepted that the universe was governed by chance his feelings were summed up in his famous statement God does not play dice
Hawking is pretty upfront with the fact that even if a grand unified theory a theory of everything
Does pan out and is discovered if there's not necessarily a benefit to humanity.
It won't necessarily improve our lifestyle or quality of life and especially
In in sections of the book where he is discussing like later stages of the universe
What might happen what might happen if the universe begins to collapse?
He's like yeah, or the Sun will be long gone people will be extinct for tens of millions of years
And this will have no possible consequence to get to anyone
But I thought his his
Justification for his research and his life's work was really lovely. I have a quote. I wanted to share with you
He says ever since the dawn of civilization
People have not been content to see events as unconnected and inexplicable
They have craved an understanding of the underlying order in the world today
We still yearn to know why we are here and where we came from
Humanity's deepest desire for knowledge is justification enough for our continuing quest and our goal is nothing less than
A complete description of the universe we live in so essentially he's saying
knowledge and understanding have innate value in their own right. And that there's something about human nature that we
Want to know we want to learn so I thought that was really lovely and the last thing that I wanted to mention is just
a piece of pop culture
So John Green's latest book, Turtles All the Way Down the explanation behind
That title is in this book a brief history of time, and I think it's kind of hilarious
So I wanted to share it with you
So it is says a well-known scientist some say it was Bertrand Russell once gave a public lecture on astronomy
He described how the earth orbits around the Sun and how the Sun in turn
orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy at the end of the lecture a little old lady at the
Back of the room got up and said you have told us is rubbish
The world is really a flat plate
Supported on the back of a giant tortoise. The scientist gave her a superior smile before replying. What is the tortoise
standing on?
You're very clever young man very clever said the old lady, but it's Turtles all the way down
So I thought that was really funny
I just like I just read the book it by Stephen King and there's a celestial turtle in that book
It's actually the the celestial turtles in a few of Stephen King's books, and I thought it was really weird
But I guess celestial turtles are a thing they're thing that I did not realize were a thing. Did you realize that her thing?
Leave your thoughts down below
Stephen Hawking a brief history of time celestial Turtles as always thanks so much for watching, and I will see you in the next one
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