Summary Of Our Picture Of The Universe By Steven Hawking

We are only a brief second in the long history of the universe; many things have preceded us to make us the most complex creatures that ever walked the Earth. We are a “new level of complexity” which makes us different from all other creatures that have come before us. Our species has only been around for 250,000 years, a short time compared to the formation of the Earth at 4.5 billion years ago and the creation of the Universe at 13.7 billion years ago, but the time we have had on this Earth has greatly affected the outcome of history. In an attempt to provide an overview of human history in his book This Fleeting World, David Christian introduces it in the context of the history of the universe and then systematically breaks it down

Ptolemy, a Roman astronomer came up with the theory that the universe revolved around Earth and all the creatures inhabiting it (Doc. C). This theory, The Geocentric Universe of Ptolemy, was adjusted by most of the people during The Middle Ages. However, much later on, Nicolaus Copernicus, a Polish astronomer, disagreed with Ptolemy’s theory. With his use of math and reason, he came up with a new theory called The Heliocentric Universe of Copernicus (Doc. C). He said that the universe & Earth itself revolves around the sun. The Church denied this theory because they did not want to be proven wrong. If the Church was wrong about this part of the universe, this would then cause man to wonder what else they could be wrong about, or even lied to them about. This new theory taught men to think for themselves and not to rely on the Church for

We can know the origin of our universe only if we have had experience if the origin of the worlds. (1)

Stephen Hawkings was from Hampshire, England. He was baptized on April 30, 1581 at Upper Clatford, Hampshire. He was the son of John and Elizabeth (nee Williams) Hopkins. He was married twice during his life, to Mary (surname unknown) and Elizabeth Fisher. Between the two of his wives Stephen had ten children. He died in 1644, where he was buried next to his wife.

Among these people were Copernicus who believed the sun was at the center of the world and the earth, stars and planets revolved around it. Danish astronomer Brahe helped contribute to this idea by contributing a large mass of data about the universe that he was able to discover. His student Kepler kept his ideas going, as he formulated many laws of planetary motion. He said the orbits around the sun were elliptical, planets don’t move in a uniform speed and the time a planet completes its orbit is related to its distance from the sun. Meanwhile, Florentine Galileo decided to use experiments to find out what happened and not what should happen, and discovered that a uniform force makes a uniform acceleration as well as inertia laws, that an object will be in motion forever unless stopped by another force.

Neil Degrasse Tyson points out in his article “Cosmic Perspective”, first published in the Natural Magazine in 2007, that if every human were to truly comprehend how stupendous and interraled the universe is to us, our perspective on humanity would shift from a focus on our distinctions to our connections. Tyson explores through many examples of the “cosmic perspective” to prove just how closely associated we are with the universe.

Copernicus began to question Ptolemy at a very young age. Copernicus didn’t believe Ptolemy’s view of the universe and that it was geocentric. Copernicus found mathematical errors to help him prove that Earth was not the center of the universe. After some research Copernicus realized that the universe was

Nicholas Copernicus was the first to question the universal truths and teachings of the church. He devised a theory that the earth along with the other planets revolved around the sun. This theory disagreed with Aristotle and the old teachings that the universe revolved around the earth, and that man was the center of the universe.

Throughout time people have held different ideas of what the universe looks like, from the Aristotelian universe centered around the Earth to the Copernican universe with our Sun at the center. After Sir Isaac Newton invented physics,

In 1543 Nicholas Copernicus, a Polish Canon, published “On the Revolution of the Celestial Orbs”. The popular view is that Copernicus discovered that the earth revolves

Few minds of this century have had an impact like that of Stephen Hawking. His discoveries and work have expanded the forefront of knowledge with a likeness to that of Einstein and Newton. Despite the clear adversity Hawking has faced, his achievements have been nothing shore of extraordinary. His work on the understanding of space, time, and the origins of the universe has set the golden standard for theories on the universes beginnings and mysteries, proving a staple teaching of modern education which we may take for granted.

Therefore, Eddington claims that the directionality of time is inherently within the human awareness. Human beings are essentially rational creatures who have an inborn need to make sense of the ever-increasing disorder in the world around them. We use the constant forward linear march of time to establish order in a disordered universe in which entropy continually increases.

Even Neil deGrasse Tyson said that he puts the odds at 50, 50 ” probability that we are “on someone else’s hard drive.”(Scientific America online) Where is the “Form” in this scenario?

This physical understanding of the exterior world may be the impetus for Stephen's subsequent construction of a hierarchical list that defines his place within the universe.

Many people who live on Earth are close minded to what is really out there in the universe. They cannot even begin to fathom the vastness of it and how Earth is just a tiny little speck compared to everything else out there. From the planets to the stars and out towards the edge of the unknown, we can only see what science provides us with. From this, we know that we are nothing but a tiny planet located in a solar system of millions in a galaxy of many more in the universe.