Review of "Brief Answers to the Big Questions," by Stephen Hawking

 Review of

Brief Answers to the Big Questions, by Stephen Hawking, ISBN 9781984887269

Five out of five stars

Folksy explanations to deep questions

In this book noted astrophysicist Stephen Hawking deals with answering ten of the major questions about how the universe works and how humans relate to it. Those ten questions are:

1) Is there a God?

2) How did it all begin?

3) Is there other intelligent life in the universe?

4) Can we predict the future?

5) What is inside a black hole?

6) Is time travel possible?

7) Will we survive on Earth?

8) Should we colonize space?

9) Will artificial intelligence outsmart us?

10) How do we shape the future?

Given wide range of these questions, some, such as “How did it all begin?’ can be answered with reasonable certainty. There was a sudden expansion called the “Big Bang,” but what came before that is currently unanswerable. The answer to “Should we colonize space?” is easy to answer in the affirmative. Throughout human history, when new areas become available for human habitation, curiosity and the desire for new places to live overcome the dangers. 

 Other questions such as “Is there other intelligent life in the universe?” at this time can only be answered in the probabilistic sense. It seems most unlikely that life would not have developed elsewhere, and intelligence would seem to be a natural outcome of evolutionary pressures. 

 Hawking does the best that can be done in answering these very difficult questions. He does so using some very folksy and sometimes corny humor. It is unlikely that you will laugh hard at the jokes, but there is no question that some will generate a smile. Hawking keeps the technical talk to a low level, so the answers he gives can be understood by most people with no background in astrophysics. It is a very good book of popular science. 


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