THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING
June 02, 2020POST LECTIO : The first step in the path of understanding our Universe
Author : Stephen W. Hawking
Year : 2006
Genre : Cosmology/Science
Summary: This book contains seven lectures of the famous astrophysicist Stephen Hawking. These lectures are divided into individual chapters and the topics are briefly explained.
“The most remarkable property of the universe is that it has spawned creatures able to ask questions.”
Stephen William Hawking was a true genius. He was able to overcome his physical impairment and succeed in his field. The seven chapters in the book are explained very brilliantly by him. Even though the author has tried to avoid the technical jargon and make it simple for the reader, certain portions are a bit heavy, owing to the depth of the subject being handled.
All the seven chapter are very interesting. The way the lecture proceeds really piques your interest. The concepts explained here are really basic, but they seem a bit difficult to understand, but if you read these concepts again slowly, with all your power of concentration, then can you can grasp the idea behind them.
The seven chapters are :
Lecture One: Ideas about the Universe
Lecture Two: The Expanding Universe
Lecture Two: The Expanding Universe
Lecture Three: Black Holes
Lecture Four: Black Holes ain’t so Black
Lecture Five: The Origin and Fate of the Universe
Lecture Six: The Direction of Time
Lecture Seven: The Theory of Everything
Lecture One deals with the History and Beginning of the universe. It explains how in earlier times, people believed that the earth was flat and how it was counter argued by Aristotle and the Greeks. It covers the Geocentric theory by Claudius Ptolemy and the Heliocentric theory by Nicolas Copernicus. And how the the world accepted the Heliocentric theory.
Lecture Two deals with the concept of the expansion of the universe. This concept was first put forward by Edwin Hubble. He came to the conclusion that our universe was expanding when he was trying to measure the distance between the many galaxies in our universe. It also briefly touches the topic of “The Big Bang”.
Lecture Three deals with Black Holes. It goes on to explain how they are formed, what are their characteristics and so on. Stephen Hawking along with Roger Penrose worked on Black Holes and landed on the concept of “Singularities”. It explains the “ Chandrasekhar limit” for stars.
Lecture Four deals with radiation from black holes which was first put forward by Stephen Hawking himself, it also addresses the General relativity and Quantum mechanics in relation with Black Holes.
Lecture Five deals with “Hot Big Bang Model” and how our Universe has come to its present state after the Big Bang. This chapters explains Quantum Gravity and No Boundary Condition. It discusses the behaviour of our universe in the past how it will behave in the future.
Lecture Six deals with movement of time. It discusses how the arrow of time moves only forward and and not backward. Can the arrow's direction be reversed and so on. The Boundary conditions of the universe is explained.
Lecture Seven deals with “ The Theory of Everything”. For a very long time, physicists have been trying for the unification of physics, and create a unified theory, which means a theory to all the aspects of the universe and its paraphernalia. This theory will help us in understanding our universe completely. But it may take a very long time to achieve this. And I would like to quote the author here , “However, if we do discover the theory, it should in time be understandable in broad principle by everyone not just a few scientists. Then we shall be able to take part in the discussion of why the universe exists. If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason. For then we would know the mind of God.”
Post Lectio is a series where we present a spoiler-free review of the books we read.
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