Today's soundtrack is Jethro Tull: Stand Up. I'm reading chapter one of Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time, "Our Picture of the Universe." This is the first time I've read any of Hawking's work, so I'm excited to dive in.
Hawking begins the chapter by talking about some of the past misconceptions about the universe: geocentricism, magnetism causing orbits, spherical orbits, repulsive gravity, then explains why we discarded these views and arrived at our current ones.
Hawking alludes to the concept of time at several points throughout the chapter, questioning whether time has always existed as we perceive it, and observing that "an expanding universe does not preclude a creator, but it does place limits on when [H]e might have carried out [H]is job" (15).
Stephen Hawking says that the "goal of science is to provide a single theory that describes the whole universe" (17). He believes that our theories must address two concerns: what did the universe look like at the beginning of time? and What will our universe look like in the future?
Currently, we use multiple theories in conjunction to form a larger understanding: Newtonian gravity explains our solar systems, the theory of relativity explains stronger gravitational fields, and quantum mechanics addresses "phenomena at the atomic level and below" (19). Interestingly, Hawking says that the general theory of relativity is in some ways incompatible with quantum physics, meaning that we will ultimately need to "abandon or modify" (17) one or both of those theories. Scientists today are searching for a new theory that will encompass both - a "quantum theory of gravity" (18).
Hawking raises a fascinating theory: if there could be found one single theory of everything, wouldn't it determine what we do? And if this is the case, "the theory itself would determine the outcome of our search for it! And why should it determine that we come to the right conclusions from the evidence?" (21)
Hawking is not sure whether a unified theory would change humanity's chances for survival; however, he notes that man has an innate desire to understand the world around him, which we see manifested today as a desire to find a single theory that would give us "a complete description of the universe we live in" (21).
