Genre: Nonfiction/Science
Page Count: 240
One of the purifying ways to unshackle our minds from the unending, and at times intense, anxieties of life is to zoom our thinking all the way out – to the point of god’s view. From such a distant and all-encompassing view, we along with our galaxy, would hardly be visible. What significance our worries would then have?
I call it a ‘purifying’ way of ridding our mind of fears because such an exercise has the power of cleaning our slates, mind slates that is, which over time becomes marked with too many thoughts and worries. Hawking’s book had a similar effect on me.
But while zooming out to a god’s view was a passive exercise before, in this book it becomes more of an active one. Hawking’s ability to bring down his ideas from the heights of genius down to a level of child’s understanding is truly awe-inspiring and humble. Awe-inspiring because for a normal person, like myself, to able to comprehend such outlying theories about our galaxy and universe is truly an experience of going beyond the everyday realm of our minds; humble, then, because not everyone is so kindly when it comes to, even painstakingly, explaining, and thereby, bending down his ideas to level where everyone can understand – in other words, bending something from the extraordinary heights to an ordinary level.
‘With age increases vanity’ said Durant, but may be with wisdom it decreases. And Hawking’s wisdom is subliminal both figuratively and literally.
In twelve chapters, that starts with creating an explorative curiosity in reader’s mind about the beginning of universe and continues to fill that curiosity with explanatory ideas, then ends with combing all the insights, which includes the greatest ideas that men ever had from Newton to Einstein, all on a single point from where it started: how and when our universe started?
In this subliminal journey, Hawking, again humbly, explains in very understandable terms the evolution of ideas about our universe, starting from Aristotle and his early view that Earth was actually a sphere. And while the general notion remained that our planet Earth was at the center of the universe, and that the Sun revolves around her, Copernicus in the sixteenth century said that we have been wrong all the time. Galileo, however, remains the astronomer and scientist who people associate with the discovery that the Sun, in reality, is at the center of our planetary system. And rightly so, since his bold discovery was met with religious bigotry and he was put in prison.
Isaac Newton
comes next and starts what is now known as ‘classical physics’ with his theory
of gravity, advanced mathematics, and laws of motion. Newton singlehandedly evolved
not only the field of Physics but also human thinking. Einstein, among many others
mentioned in this book, would be the next great scientist who would revolutionize
classical physics into modern physics with his theory of general relativity.
While talking about these great thinkers and their ideas, Hawking shows great understanding of these complex set of theories and is thus able to explain them in terms that is understandable for normal people. Moreover, it is not just a dry collection of scientific ideas about our universe, but a rather flowing narration of how these great ideas came about and changed, at every instant, how we viewed our universe and ourselves.
Hawking’s does well in keeping himself out of the spotlight in this book, nonetheless, the man’s genius comes forth as he explains the accounting theories of physics as if he owns them, and then adds upon them his own findings and possibly the grounds for next the big revolution in physics.
And as with all walks of life, in the evolving physics too, God has a central role; Hawking starts exploring Him as the creator and ends with ‘wanting to know His mind’.
This book, at best, would teach a curios mind whatever there is to know about physics and its importance, or on the least, it would inspire every reader to know about their universe and ultimately about themselves. If one wants to know the magical power of a book, then one shall look no further than this.
Ratings: 5/5 ***** February 18, 2021_