I found it very clear--to the extent that all that quantum and cosmological chicanery can be rendered intelligible--but not revelatory. Hawking has already put forward in another book the mind-bending idea that time may have not beginning, being like a point on a curved surface, such if you go back far enough towards it, you get to a point where you no longer make any further progress backwards, but just start going forwards again.
One fact I found particularly intriguing was that you can get quantum interference effects with bunches of atoms as well as with electrons. Hawking suggests something at least as large as a virus might even show them. It struck me that, since you don''t get these effects at an everyday macro level, there must be a magnitude at which they no longer occur, and a necessary physical reason for why they don't. However, Hawking doesn't hint at what that reason might be.
Originally posted by IshDaGegg I found it very clear--to the extent that all that quantum and cosmological chicanery can be rendered intelligible--but not revelatory. Hawking has already put forward in another book the mind-bending idea that time may have not beginning, being like a point on a curved surface, such if you go back far enough towards it, you get to a point where you no lon ...[text shortened]... sical reason for why they don't. However, Hawking doesn't hint at what that reason might be.
I like how he said, that at the end of the day, he "needs" the love of his family more than he needs science. Crazy nutjob.
Originally posted by FreakyKBH I like how he said, that at the end of the day, he "needs" the love of his family more than he needs science. Crazy nutjob.
That's an interesting criterion for being a nutjob.
The Grand Design
12 Sep '10 19:13
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