A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking

Summarized form by Sambita Saha

Before we start to discuss this very book, it is my very responsibility to state that, the universe that we live in is stranger than fiction. Not necessarily, this strange neighborhood needs to follow the same principles and laws, by which our very existence is defined. But it has laws of its own, of some we have come to know and some, we require to, not for sake of knowledge only, but for sake of sour very existence. In order to understand and rightly observe, we need to keep our minds open. Before us, many a men, has devoted their lifetime work into this subject. Here, we shall try to understand the universe with one such mans observation Hawking starts his discussion with the picture of a universe as pictured at the beginning of the human race and progressively comes to a more accurate model of the Universe that we see today. He begins with the ancient, geocentric models with earth as the centre of the universe and continues to the more familiar steady-state and big bang models as he relates discoveries that required new models of the universe. Galileo's discovery of satellites orbit Jupiter forced a heliocentric model of the universe and Newton's gravitational laws were able to define a basic functionality of the universe, though the expanding nature of universe later came into picture with the discoveries made by Hubble (Dopplers effect) and Friedmann. The following chapter begins with a discussion of Einstein's theory of relativity with its generalized and special form that states that the speed of light is constant and nullifies the concept of absolute time and space, earlier introduced by Newton and successfully defines a relationship between time and space. It also states that a light wave can follow a curved path under the influence of gravitational force. Hawking discusses in more detail modern models of the Universe. Friedmann's discovery, along with the fact that the Universe appears pretty much identical in all directions (verified by the constant microwave radiation received from the beginning of time) determined that the rate of expansion of the Universe is same in all direction. Friendmann also gives away the very beginning of our universe, forming the big bang model and predicts the utter collapse of our universe (Big-Crunch), under the large gravitational force, which will eventually overtake the expanding force of the universe. Quantum mechanics and Hisenbergs uncertainty principle played a great role in defining our universe at the present time. According to quantum hypothesis, energy from a radiation source cannot be emitted at an arbitrary rate, but only in certain packets, named quanta and In order to predict the future state of our universe, we need to know the present state accurately, and that can be done by measuring the state of a particle. Here, the uncertainty principle comes into play, which states, if we try to measure the exact position and the velocity of a particle, at an instant, we shall get nos of different possible outcomes only and the principle would be able to tell us how likely, each of these is to happen. Uncertainty principle hence, takes away the chances of any future prediction of a particles position, trajectory and velocity. Nothing has a definite position, a definite trajectory, or a definite momentum. Trying to pin a thing down to one definite position will make its momentum less well pinned down, and vice-versa. Further discussion into elementary particles, reveals that all particles made of quarks, which come in six flavors, each with three colors. Each particle is composed of three quarks and comes is four varieties of spin: 1/2, 0, 1, and 2. Spin 1/2 particles make up matter, spin 0 particles; the rest are mass less particles that are manifestations of the four fundamental forces. Spin 1 particles are photons (electromagnetism force), bosons (weak nuclear force) and gluons (strong nuclear force). Spin 2

Page No -

particles are gravitons (gravitational force). Theories have been developed that unifies the spin 1 forces (Grand Unified Theory) but cannot be verified because the forces unify at incredibly high energies and to undergo such experiment has yet not been possible. It also states that a particles can decay into another particles (generally particles and antiparticles, but the decay rate is almost 1 among 30,000). At the introductory chapter of black holes, interestingly, we come to derive a relationship between the gravitational force and the nuclear force. Black holes are formed due to the gravitational force of a certain star, with a mass larger than the Chandrashekhars limit, i.e. a star with a mass of two times the sun or more. What happens is, the more the mass, the hotter it needs to be to balance the gravitational force of its own, hence more energy is required. In doing so, eventually, the star spends all its nuclear fuel (the only source of its energy) and reaches a singularity where it collapses under the gravitational force. As one approaches the singularity, there is an event horizon, beyond which not even light can pass. This singularity cannot be defined by any laws known to human kind, since no laws, discovered so far has yet been able to explain the state of infinite densities, zero time. The usual model of the Universe states that temperature is inversely proportional to size. At the beginning of the universe, it was infinitely hot and infinitely dense, as the size of the universe was null or zero. One second afterwards, it had cooled down to about ten thousand million degrees and mostly contained photons, electrons, and neutrinos and their anti-particles. As universe continued to expand, the temperature dropped significantly, allowing annihilation of electrons/anti electron pairs, with left over of a few electrons, photons, neutrinos and anti particles of neutrinos. One hundred seconds after the beginning, overwhelmed by the strong nuclear forces, protons and neutrons began condensing into nuclei of hydrogen, helium in large proportion along with other heavy elements such as beryllium and lithium. Within a few hours this must have stopped and nothing took place for the next million years as the Universe expanded enough to cool down to the point where atoms could form (several thousand degrees). At this point stars and galaxies began to form by balancing the expansion of the universe with the gravitational force of unified atoms/matters around them. In a paper published by Gamow (1948), he claimed that, these early radiation in the time of big bang, would still be around. Later the same radiation was being captured by Friedmann and his fellow students that predicted the expanding nature of the universe and has already been discussed in the earlier paragraphs. However, there are some unanswered questions that this model raises. Firstly, why the early Universe was so hot? Secondly, why the Universe is so uniform on a large scale I.e. considering light as the fastest moving wave, still it is quite impossible for a light wave to reach from one end of the universe to the other, hence, when experimented (and as stated earlier), how come we receive the radiation of the same frequencies from each side of the universe. Thirdly, even though the universe is largely uniform, but considering local irregularities of the universe (i.e. galaxies, and starts) it seems, a density fluctuation has taken place. What was the origin of theses density fluctuation? Hawking finishes with the note that, even after our evaluation as a mighty race and our constant quench for knowledge, these questions still baffles us, since neither the theory of relativity nor the uncertainty principle holds any logical explanation when it comes to the beginning of our universe. Nor can it explains, if the universe is the only a reference one and beyond ours may live a thousands, millions others. Science seems to have uncovered a set of laws that, within the limit set by the uncertainty principle tell us how the universe will develop with time, if we know its state at any given time. To answer some of these questions, anthropic principle was introduced by astronomer Brandon Carter. The Anthropic Principle,states two possible outcomes. The weak anthropic principle says that a large system like the Universe is likely to have conditions for sentient life in few areas, so we should not be surprised

Page No -

that we live in one of those areas. The strong anthropic principle says that we see the Universe as it is, because if it were otherwise, we would not be here to see it. A Brief History of Time successfully performs when it comes to explain our universe and the laws by which it governs. Hawking explains the relevant laws of physics as part of a coherent plan leading to his main discussion, always giving a quick background of how these theories came to be. The explanations are simple, accurate, well-illustrated, and peppered with short insights into the character of the discoverer. To a person like me, without a pure physics background, what it does is, it helps me to flourish my knowledge without asking me to be a physics nerd at the end of the day. Also, it would be quite incomplete, if I draw the conclusion without saying that, this book somehow made me realize how insignificant our human race is in the time frame of the universe and beyond. But should this knowledge discourage us from the exploration of the unknowns? As an intelligent life form, it is our primary duty to know the very reason behind our existence and what future holds for our race and the outcomes may not always be in our favor and may not always be pleasant. But our thirst for knowledge and existence is unquenchable and so it will remain. This book only confirms the same.

Page No -