Brief Answers to the Big Questions is a nonfiction book written by Stephen Hawking. Released posthumously in 2018, it serves as a way for Hawking to briefly answer massive questions plaguing the masses.
Publisher's summary[]
Stephen Hawking was recognized as one of the greatest minds of our time and a figure of inspiration after defying his ALS diagnosis at age twenty-one. He is known for both his breakthroughs in theoretical physics as well as his ability to make complex concepts accessible for all, and was beloved for his mischievous sense of humor. At the time of his death, Hawking was working on a final project: a book compiling his answers to the "big" questions that he was so often posed--questions that ranged beyond his academic field.
Within these pages, he provides his personal views on our biggest challenges as a human race, and where we, as a planet, are heading next. Each section will be introduced by a leading thinker offering his or her own insight into Professor Hawking's contribution to our understanding.
Full summary[]
The book treats four main subjects: "Why Are We Here? Will We Survive? Will Technology Save Us or Destroy Us? How Can We Thrive?" in ten chapters, one for each specific question.
The ten questions that are considered include: Is there a God? How did it all begin? What is inside a black hole? Can we predict the future? Is time travel possible? Will we survive on Earth? Is there other intelligent life in the universe? Should we colonise space? Will artificial intelligence outsmart us? How do we shape the future?
The book discusses many of today's challenges, including the biggest threat to the planet (an "asteroid collision", like the one that wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago ... "we have no defense" against that), climate change ("a rise in ocean temperature would melt the ice caps and cause the release of large amounts of carbon dioxide ... [making] our climate like that of Venus with a temperature of 250 °C (482 °F)"), the threat of nuclear war ("at some point in the next 1,000 years, nuclear war or environmental calamity will 'cripple Earth'"), nuclear power ("that would give us clean energy with no pollution or global warming"), the development of artificial intelligence (AI) ("in the future AI could develop a will of its own, a will that is in conflict with ours") and humans ("a genetically-modified race of superhumans, say with greater memory and disease resistance, would imperil the others").
The book also discusses the "big questions", including life ("in the next 50 years, we will come to understand how life began and possibly discover whether life exists elsewhere in the universe"), time ("You can't get to a time before the Big Bang [because] there was no time before the Big Bang ... If the concept of time only exists within our universe and the universe came to be spontaneously ... and with it, brought time into existence, there's simply no 'before' to consider." Hawking used the simile, that there is nothing on Earth south of the South Pole. After discussing the inhomogeneities in the cosmic background radiation, detailed by the WMAP satellite, the book concludes "So look carefully at the map of the microwave sky. It is the blueprint for all the structure in the universe. We are the product of quantum fluctuations in the early universe. God really does play dice."
Further, Hawking believed the universe could reach an end point, either through an eventual cosmic "crunch or an expansion" ... "In the interim ... We are all time travelers, journeying together into the future. But let us make that future a place we want to visit"), the possibility of time travel ("asking if time travel is possible is a 'very serious question' that our current understanding cannot rule out"), and God ("knowing the mind of God is knowing the laws of nature ... My prediction is that we will know the mind of God by the end of this century"; further, "if you like, you can call the laws of science 'God,' but it wouldn't be a personal God that you would meet and put questions to ... [nevertheless] the simplest explanation is that God does not exist and there is no reliable evidence for an afterlife, though people could live on through their influence and genes"). As for the need for a God to cause the Big Bang, Hawking stated that "The laws of nature itself tell us that not only could the universe have popped into existence without any assistance, like a proton, and have required nothing in terms of energy, but also it is possible that nothing caused the Big Bang. Nothing."
According to Hawking in the book, education and science are "in danger now more than ever before", and urged young people "to look up at the stars and not down at your feet ... Try to make sense of what you see, and wonder about what makes the universe exist ... It matters that you don't give up. Unleash your imagination. Shape the future."
See also[]
- What If? by Randall Monroe