Stephen Hawking is not a genius because he can do complex math; it is because he can explain complex math to a simple, stupid brain like mine. I reviewed A Brief History of Time and profiled him for the Sunday Nation
I am just getting around to reading Brief Answers to the Big Questions , which, as you must know, was published in 2018. I was too busy with the so-called ‘malaya’ business to read one of the most delightful—and important books—to come out of humanity. Imagine!
Some of the questions Prof tries to answer are the obvious: Is there God? What is the origin of the universe? Is there intelligent life in the universe? God knows we are fumbling with these questions; perhaps we spend so much time inventing weapons and oppressing each other.
I came across the most amazing theory from one of those accounts I follow on ‘Teura’ (perhaps Twitter for you; that’s what we ‘Amerucans’ call it in Makandune). These folks theorised that our universe might exist inside a Black Hole. In classical physics, Black Holes, created by super-massive stars when they run out of juice and collapse upon themselves, are regions of Space that are so dense, with gravity so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape.
The assumption in old physics is that nothing exists beyond the Event Horizon—the point of no return, where even time itself comes to a halt. At the centre of the Black Hole is a singularity; a point of infinite density and zero volume where even the laws of Nature break down. So, how can our universe exist in that mess?
In comes the new physics. According to quantum physics, some information and, possibly, structures survive beyond the Event Horizon. And the singularity may not be a point, after all; it could be a “sphere or torus”; if that be the case, then the singularity could form a wormhole, creating a shortcut in space-time (like matter and energy, space and time have their own dalliance and the thought of explaining it makes me ill) and, therefore, linking two distant regions. So, in the thinking here, there could be a highway out of a Black Hole.
The other possibility is that the singularity is not a point at all; neither is it a sphere or torus: It could be a ”hypersphere or hyper-torus”. “This would create a bubble universe, a self-contained region of space-time that has its own laws of physics and constants. In this case, the bubble universe exists inside a Black Hole and our observable universe could be a portion of it”. (“Our Universe Exists Inside of a Black Hole of Higher Dimensional Universe” Physics-Astronomy.Dotcom). Please read the article for yourself and forgive me for reproducing large chunks; it happens when concepts are only half-understood.
Now let’s turn to Prof Hawking’s arguments against the existence of God. His arguments, as always, are neither flippant nor made out of spiritual depravity. He is a thorough-going scientist who believes that, as a scientist, scientific determinism is a basic principle of the universe: That the laws of nature explain everything, that “these laws are unchangeable and universal”. “They apply not just to the flight of a ball but to the motion of a planet and everything in the universe.” Since these laws govern everything, apply to everything, and are unchangeable and unbreakable, in these circumstances, I think Prof is struggling with God’s JD.
What about the creation of the universe? Hawking believes the universe was created spontaneously from nothing and is actually nothing. Well, it consists of matter, energy and space; but we already know from Einstein (E=MC2) that matter and energy are more or less the same thing. The positive energy that exists in the universe is matched by an exact amount of negative energy. Two always cancel out, meaning the universe is really nothing.
He relies on quantum physics and the laws of quantum mechanics, which allow small particles, such as protons, to spontaneously appear randomly and disappear equally randomly. His argument is that the original particle need not have been created; it could have been a random event.
Now here is where we get the bugger. He argues that if you go back in time you arrive at a very very small, very dense point; in other words, a Black Hole. Then he establishes the decay of time in a Black Hole: A clock being sucked into a Black Hole shows time slowing down as it approaches the thing and stops altogether at the Event Horizon.
Therefore, since the Big Bang originated in a Black Hole, there was no time before the Big Bang. And there was no cause for the Big Bang because there was no time for the cause to exist in. So there couldn’t be a creator because there would be no time for them to exist in.
However, quantum physics now accepts that Black Holes are far from the end of information and structure. As a matter of fact, they could be the home of wormholes and universes. And, therefore, He lives!
Is there an insurgence taking root in northern Kenya? Isn’t it time for Prof Kindiki and his brother Duale in Defence to swing into action before it is too late?
