Stephen Hawking's latest work, which looks at issues such as the existence of God or the possibility of time travel, was presented Monday by his children, who tried to complete the book after the death of the British astrophysics giant. Hawking was always asked about the same things, so he started work on Short Answers to Big Questions last year, but didn't finish it until his death in March at age 76. The book was completed by the physicist's family and academic colleagues, taking materials from his own personal archive.
“He was constantly asked the same question,” says his daughter Lucy Hawking.
Hawking's last book
In this book, the physicist tried to "give the most accurate, clear, understandable answers that he gave."
“It’s a pity that he doesn’t see this now,” the daughter laments.
Hawking, confined to a wheelchair from his youth due to illness, devoted his entire life to the mysteries of the universe. The book "A Brief History of Time" in 1988 brought him special popularity. He gained admirers outside the world of astrophysics and prompted people to think about the very foundations of being. He himself left answers to some questions in his last book.
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Big questions
The ten questions Hawking tried to answer were:
- Does God exist?
- How did it all start?
- What's in a black hole?
- Can we predict the future?
- Is time travel possible?
- Can we survive on Earth?
- Is there any other intelligent life in the universe?
- Should we colonize space?
- Will artificial intelligence surpass us?
- How do we shape the future?
Many tasks
In his book, Hawking says that humans have no other option but to leave Earth, otherwise they risk being "destroyed."
He says computers will outperform humans in intelligence over the next 100 years, but "we need to make sure computers have goals that align with ours."
Hawking says that the human race has improved its mental and physical properties, but a genetically modified superhuman race with superior memory and immunity to disease will surpass the rest.
He believed that by the time people understand what is happening with climate change, it may be too late.
Hawking says the simplest explanation is that God does not exist, and that there is no conclusive evidence for existence after death, although humans can continue to live under the influence.
In the next 50 years, according to Hawking, we will begin to understand how life began and, perhaps, we will discover life existing somewhere else in the universe.
“He was deeply concerned that while the problems are global, we are becoming more local in our thinking,” says Lucy Hawking. "This is a call for unity, for humanity, to reclaim ourselves and to challenge the challenges that lie before us."
In his final scientific paper, Hawking sheds light on black holes and the information paradox; the new work also calculates the entropy of black holes.