’An astonishingly good read, gripping and thought-provoking’ William Lane Craig
’If you wanted to understand Stephen Hawking but couldn’t face the maths, this is the book for you.’ Dr Althea Wilkinson, Jodrell Bank
Stephen Hawking kept breaking rules. Given two years to live, he managed another 54. He wrote about quantum cosmology – and sold 20 million books. He could not speak, yet the world recognized his voice. Hutchings and Wilkinson shine light on his extraordinary ideas. The result is a thought-provoking theological commentary and critique of black holes, origins, many universes, and Big Questions.
In ’God, Stephen Hawking and the Multiverse’, Hutchings and Wilkinson explain the key elements of Stephen Hawking’s physical and mathematical theories, consider their philosophical and religious implications, and relate his ideas to traditional Judaeo-Christian concepts of God. This book about Stephen Hawking and God and the relationship between God and science gives a brief but engaging overview of the history of physics and cosmology. Perfect for beginners, ’God, Stephen Hawking and the Multiverse’ offers a concise and accessible introduction to Hawking’s work and how his contributions to modern physics and cosmology can complement religion.
Exploring topics such as gravity, quantum mechanics and general relativity, the authors offer a fresh perspective on the relationship between God and science, providing a balanced and informed commentary on Hawking’s work both scientifically and theologically.
Innehållsförteckning
List of plates xi
Acknowledgements xii
1 Project Shangri-La 1
The icon 5
The book 7
Big Questions 9
Where do we go from here? 10
2 Tunguska 13
Elementary, my dear Aristotle 15
It’s all Greek to me 17
This most beautiful system 19
Force fields and the art of science 22
Light and momentary troubles 25
A space-, time- and mind-bending solution 28
Hawking, relativity and those Big Questions 30
3 Canoe man 33
A case for the defence 34
The beginning of the end 35
Hooke versus Newton revisited 36
But together they do 38
Young strikes again 39
Weirdness, weirdness, everywhere 41
A matter of interpretation 42
Contents
Heisenberg, histories and Hawking 45
Closing argument 47
4 Gingerich’s quest 50
All that nonsense 51
The book nobody read 53
Holding the universe still 54
The 1920s’ Copernicus #1 55
The 1920s’ Copernicus #2 57
Redshifting opinions 58
The discarded image 59
A cooling-off period 60
The small matter of nucleosynthesis 61
Digging the cosmological heels in 63
Brainwaves and microwaves 64
Cosmology and salvation 66
5 Batman Forever? 80
The clash of the titans 81
Why can’t you two just get along?! 82
Separation anxiety 84
The dark star 86
Where QM and GR meet 88
Hawking destroys the universe 91
QM versus GR – the infinite battleground 94
Hawking the hero 98
6 Part 1 101
Akira Yoshida 101
Unification 102
The grand unified theory 103
Contents
Putting the heat on 105
Just how far can we take this? 107
A new hope 111
Black holes ain’t so black 112
Hawking radiation 114
Securing a legacy 116
Trouble in Paradise 117
6 Part 2 121
Mathematical dogfights 121
Imagine that 122
Waves, particles, probabilities, histories 124
Hawking goes big 126
A disclaimer 129
Extraordinary measures 130
Extraordinary times 131
A theory of (almost) everything 133
Multiverses, metaphysics and myths 136
7 Tyres and anchors 139
Counter-punches 141
Crossing the divide 141
Is philosophy dead? 144
You Kant be serious!? 147
Being critical about realism 150
A rose by any other name 151
One foot in each camp 152
Introducing the multiverse 154
Creating history 157
Hawking and God 159
Switching the spotlight 161
Contents
8 The Test of Solomon 163
What about singularities? 163
What about Hawking radiation? 165
What about the no-boundary proposal? 167
No rescue 168
What about model-dependent realism? 172
What about the multiverse? 174
Infinite death 178
What about God? 180
Different universes 182
Big Answers 185
Appendix 1: A note on M-theory 188
Appendix 2: A universe from nothing 191
Notes 195
Acknowledgements 206
Index 207
Om författaren
David Hutchings is a Physics teacher at Pocklington School near York, England. A Fellow of the Institute of Physics, he has written several books about the relationship between science and religion and speaks regularly on the topic around the country at conferences, schools, universities, and churches. David has also run multiple training events for science teachers, specializing in dealing with common misconceptions in the discipline. He lives in York with his wife and two young daughters.David Wilkinson is Principal of St John’s College and Professor in the Department of Theology and Religion at Durham University. He lives in Newcastle with his wife Alison and has two grown up children. He is a writer and speaker on Christianity and Science not just in the UK but around the world. He has doctorates in astrophysics and theology and is a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society. He is a Methodist minister, and author of many books.
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