When Thomas Herdag was first invited into Stephen Hawking’s office in the late 1990s, there was a direct connection between the young Belgian researcher and the famous British physicist.
“Something clicked between us,” Herzog said.
This connection would continue even as Hawking’s debilitating disease, ALS, robbed him of his last means of communication, allowing the pair to hammer out a new theory.
Hawking’s final theory before his death in 2018 was first published in full in Herdock’s book On the Origin of Time, which was published in England last month.
In an interview with AFP, the cosmologist talked about their 20-year collaboration, how they communicated through facial expressions and why Hawking concluded his landmark book A Brief History was written in the wrong perspective.
‘Designer’ world
During their first meeting at Cambridge University in 1998, Hawking wasted no time in broaching the problem that had been bothering him.
“The universe we observe appears to have been designed,” Hawking told Herdock via a clicker connected to the speech engine.
Herzog explained that “the laws of physics—the laws by which the universe operates—become ideal for the universe to be habitable and for life to be possible.”
This wonderful chain of good fortune extends from the delicate balance that allows atoms to form the molecules needed for chemistry and the expansion of the universe, allowing for the existence of cosmic systems as vast as galaxies.
The “fashionable” answer to this problem, Herzog said, is the multiverse, which has recently become popular in the film industry.
The 47-year-old added that the theory explains the seemingly designed nature of the universe by making it one of countless other things – most of them “bad, lifeless, sterile”.
But Herzog said Hawking, acknowledging his “huge quagmire of contradictions into which diversity leads us,” said there must be a better explanation.
A view from the outside
A few years into their collaboration, Herzog said, he “began to sink in” that they were missing something essential.
Diversity and A Brief History of Time, Herzog said, are also “attempts to describe the creation and evolution of our universe through what Stephen calls ‘God’s perspective’.”
But, he added, since we are “inside the universe” and do not look outward, our theories cannot be separated from our perspective.
“This is why[Hawking]said A Brief History of Time was written in the wrong perspective.”
Over the next fifteen years, the pair used quantum theory’s quirks to develop a new theory of physics and cosmology “from the observer’s point of view”.
But by 2008, Hawking had lost the ability to use his clicker and was cut off from the world.
“I thought it was over,” Herdog said.
The couple then developed a “somewhat magical” level of nonverbal communication that allowed them to continue working, he said.
Herzog stands in front of Hawking, asking questions and looking into the physicist’s eyes.
“He had a wide range of facial expressions, from extreme disagreement to extreme excitement,” she said.
Herzog said it was “impossible to separate” which parts of the final theory came from him or Hawking, with many ideas developed between the pair over the years.
‘A great evolutionary process’
Their theory focuses on what happened in the first moments after the Big Bang.
They suggest that the laws of physics evolved with the universe, rather than breaking out by following a set of pre-existing laws.
This means that if you turn back the clock too much, “the laws of physics simplify and disappear,” Herdog said.
“Eventually, even the dimensions of time evaporate.”
Under this theory, the laws of physics and time evolved in a manner similar to biological evolution—the title of Herdock’s book is a reference to Darwin’s “Origin of Species.”
“What we’re basically saying is that (biology and physics) are two stages of a larger evolutionary process,” Herzog said.
He admitted that it would be difficult to prove this theory because the early years of the universe were hidden in the “mist of the Big Bang”.
One way to lift that veil might be by studying gravitational waves, the ripples in the fabric of space-time, and another way might be through quantum holograms built into quantum computers, he said.
