We can remember the past, but why can't we remember the future?
- Stephen Hawking
Picked up the book long ago, almost 8 years back, read few lines but was dispelled away due to extra small fonts and bad paper quality of a duplicate copy. Recently, went to "Blossoms", the famous book shop in Church Street, and grabbed a second-hand copy of the book. In case you enjoy reading original font and still don't want to shell out a lot in Crosswords, this is a "one stop shop". You get almost any book you ever desired to read. Helpers are keen and resourceful.
"Brief History of Time" is certainly not any brief account of time. In fact it looks like one of the best consolidated and comprehensive history of time. Probably, that is the reason Hawking came with his briefer version recently. Anyway, the book is a very nice read for those who aspired to pursue astrophysics as a career but realized the greater truth with time. It looks like a good supplement for them.
The book challenges almost every fact that had been established pre-heisenberg era and goes ahead to challenge even the Unassailable Einstein. It dwells completely on Quantum Physics and looks for unification of all the forces conceived. The climax of the book arrives when Hawking talks that probably time is just a notion and may not exist, as no physical principle or phenomenon seems to team up with time. There are interesting derivations and possible scenarios where the world of fantasies seem to combine into mathematical equations. It sometime even goes further than the hyper world (world with 4 dimensions). To note that if String Theories were true we might be living in a world with either 10 or 26 dimensions is nothing but surreal. At places the book forges science and philosophy. The strong and weak anthropic principle has been widely used to prove the concept of big-bang , negative time and back to the future (if universe were to collapse, or you don't know re-collapse).
Towards the end Hawking is really cautious in saying that there are three possibilities;
First, probably we are very close to the unification of all physical laws and hence the ultimate reality. Alas, if that is the case what would happen to the stream of physics, won't we be finishing our final aim too soon. Personally, I feel it will be very disappointing (sorry to the fatigue of Newton, Leibniz, Einstein and dear Mr. Hawking).
Second, probably we are headed in the right direction and refining the laws but there may not be an end. This seems agreeable, for the fact we have seen false dawns before and this also seems to agree with oriental philosophies. The laws have to be "seen" but once you try to define them they become a limited truth.
Third, and probably very interesting, that there is no ultimate truth and there are more laws than what we would ever witness. This also could be a possible derivation from Anthropic Principle of Philosophy (The fact that we are questioning the universe (and hence the laws) only because we exist).
We don't know, probably we would never know. And doesn't it sound familiar to an Indian ear:
नासदासीन्नोसदासीत्तादानीं नासीद्रजो नो व्योमापरो यत
किमावरीव: कुहकस्यशर्मन्नम्भ: किमासीद्गहनं गभीरं
अंतरिक्ष भी नहीं, आकाश भी नहीं था
छिपा था क्या, कहाँ, किसने ढका था
उस पल तो अगम, अटल जल भी कहाँ था"
Who knows we might come to the same old conclusion, which only says that nothing can be concluded, more like the third theory proposed. Then what would happen to Einstein's "The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is comprehensible". Who knows? May be nobody.
"Brief History of Time" is certainly not any brief account of time. In fact it looks like one of the best consolidated and comprehensive history of time. Probably, that is the reason Hawking came with his briefer version recently. Anyway, the book is a very nice read for those who aspired to pursue astrophysics as a career but realized the greater truth with time. It looks like a good supplement for them.
The book challenges almost every fact that had been established pre-heisenberg era and goes ahead to challenge even the Unassailable Einstein. It dwells completely on Quantum Physics and looks for unification of all the forces conceived. The climax of the book arrives when Hawking talks that probably time is just a notion and may not exist, as no physical principle or phenomenon seems to team up with time. There are interesting derivations and possible scenarios where the world of fantasies seem to combine into mathematical equations. It sometime even goes further than the hyper world (world with 4 dimensions). To note that if String Theories were true we might be living in a world with either 10 or 26 dimensions is nothing but surreal. At places the book forges science and philosophy. The strong and weak anthropic principle has been widely used to prove the concept of big-bang , negative time and back to the future (if universe were to collapse, or you don't know re-collapse).
Towards the end Hawking is really cautious in saying that there are three possibilities;
First, probably we are very close to the unification of all physical laws and hence the ultimate reality. Alas, if that is the case what would happen to the stream of physics, won't we be finishing our final aim too soon. Personally, I feel it will be very disappointing (sorry to the fatigue of Newton, Leibniz, Einstein and dear Mr. Hawking).
Second, probably we are headed in the right direction and refining the laws but there may not be an end. This seems agreeable, for the fact we have seen false dawns before and this also seems to agree with oriental philosophies. The laws have to be "seen" but once you try to define them they become a limited truth.
Third, and probably very interesting, that there is no ultimate truth and there are more laws than what we would ever witness. This also could be a possible derivation from Anthropic Principle of Philosophy (The fact that we are questioning the universe (and hence the laws) only because we exist).
We don't know, probably we would never know. And doesn't it sound familiar to an Indian ear:
नासदासीन्नोसदासीत्तादानीं नासीद्रजो नो व्योमापरो यत
किमावरीव: कुहकस्यशर्मन्नम्भ: किमासीद्गहनं गभीरं
-ऋग वेद
"श्रृष्टि से पहले सत नहीं था, असत भी नहींअंतरिक्ष भी नहीं, आकाश भी नहीं था
छिपा था क्या, कहाँ, किसने ढका था
उस पल तो अगम, अटल जल भी कहाँ था"
Who knows we might come to the same old conclusion, which only says that nothing can be concluded, more like the third theory proposed. Then what would happen to Einstein's "The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is comprehensible". Who knows? May be nobody.
