The Beginning of Time This lecture is the intellectual property of Professor S.W.Hawking. You may not reproduce, edit, translate, distribute, publish or host this document in any way with out the permission of Professor Hawking. Note that there may be incorrect spellings, punctuation and/or grammar in this document. This is to allow correct pronunciation and timing by a speech synthesiser. Picture In this lecture, I would like to discuss whether time itself has a beginning, and whether it will have an end. All the evidence seems to indicate, that the universe has not existed forever, but that it had a beginning, about 15 billion years ago. This is probably the most remarkable discovery of modern cosmology. Yet it is now taken for granted. We are not yet certain whether the universe will have an end. When I gave a lecture in Japan, I was asked not to mention the possible re-collapse of the universe, because it might affect the stock market. However, I can re-assure anyone who is nervous about their investments that it is a bit early to sell: even if the universe does come to an end, it won 't be for at least twenty billion years. By that time, maybe the GATT trade agreement will have come into effect. The time scale of the universe is very long compared to that for human life. It was therefore not surprising that until recently, the universe was thought to be essentially static, and unchanging in time. On the other hand, it must have been obvious, that society is evolving
The article ‘On the Recentness of What We Know,’ written by Verlyn Klinkenborg, is a pleasant read about the author’s fondness of astronomy and his insight regarding the science of it and knowledge gleaned from it. Klinkenborg recounts a few of his star-gazing memories and then proceeds to analyze the effects cosmological discoveries have on him personally and humanity in general. The author shares bits of theoretical history of the universe and information on the early astronomers whose hypotheses have developed that history. He goes on to reference various well known discoveries throughout the years and marvels at how drastically information in recent years has changed the stories of our universe.
Just under seven years ago, astronomers using the Hubble space telescope presented results they hoped would help answer one of the most contentious issues in astronomy of the 20th century – the question of the distance scale of the universe. But there was some unease when the result was announced. According to the report, other galaxies were close enough that, extrapolating backwards from their current rate of recession and making adjustments for the influence of gravity, they all would have been together (that is, the Big Bang would have occurred) as recently as 8 billion years ago. Unfortunately, there was strong evidence already in place that some stars were at least 12-15
Speech is often based on concatenation of natural speech i.e units, that are taken from natural speech put together to form a word or sentence. Concatenative speech synthesis .has become very popular in recent years due to its improved
explain the universe in terms of nine key questions. In pursuit of answers to these questions,
Toward the latter part of the 17th century, a complete new view of the universe came into being. With the publication of Newton¡¯s ¡°Philosophiae Naturalis
In an article from the website, Science Daily, researchers have discovered more evidence to support the theory of the Milky Way growing from the middle and spreading outwards over time. This evidence came from the current Gaia-ESO project that was created by the European Space Agency. After reading this article, I realized just how important this information could be. I want to know how the Milky Way was created, because then I will be able to find out more information about how my home, Earth, was created as well. I also really enjoy the topic of astronomy, so when I was looking for articles, this study caught my eye early on. The information is also incredibly recent, which means that scientists are learning new ways to see the universe
The cosmological argument is an a posteriori argument which intends to prove that there is an intelligent being that exists; the being is distinct from the universe, explains the existence of the universe, and is omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent and omnibenevolent. The basic notion of cosmological arguments is that the world and everything in it is dependent on something other than itself for its existence. It explains that everything has a cause, that there must have been a first cause, and that this first cause was itself uncaused.
Years past, and as time went by man obtained more and more knowledge about the
Max Planck has changed our understanding as it has increased our human understanding of the frequency of radiation, given our in packets of energy now know as quanta. It has formed the basis of modern physics, and now the principles of quantum physics are being applied to an increasing number of areas, which include, quantum optics, quantum chemistry, quantum computing, and quantum cryptography. Max's theories and discoveries have changed our understanding of the process of atomic and subatomic atoms, meaning he used the idea of quanta (discrete units of energy) to explain hot glowing matter. He has began the study into the field of quantum physics. Some say Max has refined our knowledge of the Universe's composition and evolution.
During the Scientific Revolution scientists such as Galileo, Copernicus, Descartes and Bacon wrestled with questions about God, human aptitude, and the possibilities of understanding the world. Eventually, the implications of the new scientific findings began to affect the way people thought and behaved throughout Europe. Society began to question the authority of traditional knowledge about the universe. This in turn, allowed them to question traditional views of the state and social order. No longer was the world constructed as the somewhat simple Ptolemaic Model suggested. The Earth for the first time became explicable and was no longer the center of the universe. Many beliefs that had been held for hundreds of years now proved to be
We as humans have evolved over time for the sake of survival. The theory of evolution is a prime example of this. Charles Darwin created the concept that we came from simpler ancestors and became more complex over time. We kept the beneficial mutations that aided us in our survival, which is the reasoning being natural
This view was in dialectical opposition to Heraclitus of Ephesus, who argued that the world is in a constant state of flux. Heraclitus argues that there is a problem with people’s attachment to the illusion of permanence. Everything in the world will not stay the same, we can see this from the idea from Heraclitus that ‘it is not possible to step twice into the same river, according to Heraclitus, nor to touch mortal substance twice in any condition’ (Plutarch, 392B). Rivers are bodies of water that continually flows so that every second the water at a point in the river is not the same as it was before. The state of the physical world has never remained the same; mountains move over millions of years, a few billion years ago Earth could not sustain life, and even longer ago there were no solids, no liquids, only gases. Each moment can be said to die and be reborn in the next, so that change occurs every moment and it
During the Middle Ages period people believed in the idea of a Geocentric universe, the Earth was the absolute center of the universe, church had more power and authority than anybody else. People were influenced and thought that everything they do had to be approved by God. Nicolaus Copernicus challenged the theory that insisted that we lived in a Geocentric universe, and that is where our universe literally changed. Church believes started to doubt the theories that church had adopted in early years. The Scientific Revolution opened
The “scientific mind”, or how people think about the world, has changed multiple times throughout history. Before the 1700s, people had a more religious-based point of view on life; the church was considered to be far more important than it is today. With the church’s iron grip over society and its people, it came with a shock as the 1700s passed by and more and more people started to think for themselves. The acceptance of having more freedom, when it came to religion and change, changed the world forever.During the scientific revolution, Isaac Newton, Rene Descartes, and Francis Bacon all came up with principal scientific
Without knowing the existence of black holes, we would still be stuck with many unanswered questions concerning physics. The most important one would deal with the correctness of Einstein’s general relativity. When studying cosmology, various equations are used in order to explain the different phenomena that it contains, which are derived from general relativity. With this theory confirmed, all calculations appear more certain and confident. These objects are fairly important as they are one of the least understood by humans because they depict laws of physics that appear completely different from elsewhere in the universe, but, with study, can be more understood. Being completely invisible, it becomes very difficult to observe and study them. However, astronomers continue to develop different methods to do so. The question that remains is: What exactly is a black hole? How do they work and abide to the laws of physics? Simple answer, black holes are regions in space containing gravitational fields so strong that even light cannot escape them. As a result, they absorb anything that comes close and becomes trapped by its grip. Black holes come in various forms and sizes, which work differently depending on their properties. These properties, such as mass, charge and angular momentum, help in defining black holes and it is using this that it is possible to derive the math to understand them.