Article entered 2023-12-22 23:00:00
Article modified 2023-12-22 19:40:21
The Origin of Time/Thomas Hertoch/Translated by Park Byeong-cheol/RH Korea/KRW 32,000
Stephen Hawking (1942-2018), a leading scientist of our time, explored the origins of the universe while confined to a wheelchair, trying to find an answer to the question, “Why did the universe become a friendly place for life?” The author, a student and co-researcher who worked closely with Hawking for more than 20 years, wrote this book as a science book containing Hawking’s final cosmology and as a memoir about his teacher.
By looking back at the history of cosmology, from ancient Greek philosophers through Newton’s physics and Darwin’s theory of evolution to Einstein’s theory of relativity, we arrive at the question of how life could have existed in the universe. Hawking studied the ‘Big Bang’ to find the answer. And it was assumed that the mathematics hidden deep within the Big Bang would causally explain everything.
Thomas Hertoch/Translated by Park Byeong-cheol/RH Korea/32,000 won
When this idea runs into difficulties, Hawking presents a new perspective on the universe, a top-down approach that turns the existing cosmology upside down through the lens of quantum mechanics. The law does not exist for the universe, but the universe exists for the law, and if there is an answer to the question of the origin of existence, the answer must be found within, not outside. This means that the history of the universe can change depending on the questions we ask.
On the one hand, Hawking’s scholarly accomplishments, this book shows his human side as a person who was freer than anyone else in the world, even though he lived his entire life trapped inside his body due to Lou Gehrig’s disease. There are some parts that are difficult to understand if you do not have basic knowledge of physics, but if you skip them and read it, it comes across as an interesting book on science and philosophy about the universe.
