Stephen Hawking's final, god's-eye view of the cosmos ponders the ultimate origin of our universe

• It was an international bestseller, but given the complexity of its ideas, A Brief History has been called the most unread book of all time.
• Hawking continued to explore the fundamental nature of the universe until his death in 2018.
• Review: On the Origin of Time: Stephen Hawking’s Final Theory – Thomas Hertog Hertog is no passive player in this story, having been a student and collaborator of Hawking.
• Intriguingly, as Hertog explains, we are all active participants in Hawking’s final theory, shaping the universe by observing it.

Familiar ground

• To get to this point, Hertog treads some very familiar ground, discussing the history of modern cosmological ideas.
• This includes the theoretical groundwork of Albert Einstein and Georges Lemaitre, and the observational insights of Edwin Hubble that revealed the expansion of the universe.
• Usually we think of quantum mechanics describing the subatomic world, of electrons and atoms, but Hawking was thinking of the entire universe as a quantum system.
• With this no boundary hypothesis, the universe did not have an origin, not at least one we would ever really understand.

A subtle argument

• Hawking’s motivation for disliking the multiverse is a somewhat subtle argument, built on the idea of the anthropic principle, the fact that we should not be surprised to find ourselves in a universe which allows us to be here.
• Or typical in a more broader sense, that life should be composed of the same elements as us?
• And how will we ever find out how typical we are if we are forever limited to the observations of our one universe?
• To posit an alternative solution, Hawking’s first step was to upend the approach to understanding the universe.
• Clearly given the close relationship between the author and his subject, this is somewhat understandable, but can still be grating.