news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100902/lf_nm_life/us_britain_hawking
Slideshow:Physicist Stephen Hawking By Michael Holden Michael Holden - Thu Sep 2, 9:08 am ET LONDON (Reuters) - God did not create the universe and the "Big Bang" was an inevitable consequence of the laws of physics, the eminent British theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking argues in a new book. In "The Grand Design," co-authored with US physicist Leonard Mlodinow, Hawking says a new series of theories made a creator of the universe redundant, according to the Times newspaper which published extracts on Thursday. "Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist," Hawking writes. "It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going." Hawking, 68, who won global recognition with his 1988 book "A Brief History of Time," an account of the origins of the universe, is renowned for his work on black holes, cosmology and quantum gravity. Since 1974, the scientist has worked on marrying the two cornerstones of modern physics -- Albert Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, which concerns gravity and large-scale phenomena, and quantum theory, which covers subatomic particles. His latest comments suggest he has broken away from previous views he has expressed on religion. Previously, he wrote that the laws of physics meant it was simply not necessary to believe that God had intervened in the Big Bang. "If we discover a complete theory, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason -- for then we should know the mind of God." In his latest book, he said the 1992 discovery of a planet orbiting another star other than the Sun helped deconstruct the view of the father of physics Isaac Newton that the universe could not have arisen out of chaos but was created by God. "That makes the coincidences of our planetary conditions -- the single Sun, the lucky combination of Earth-Sun distance and solar mass, far less remarkable, and far less compelling evidence that the Earth was carefully designed just to please us human beings," he writes. Hawking, who is only able to speak through a computer-generated voice synthesizer, has a neuro muscular dystrophy that has progressed over the years and left him almost completely paralyzed. He began suffering the disease in his early 20s but went on to establish himself as one of the world's leading scientific authorities, and has also made guest appearances in "Star Trek" and the cartoons "Futurama" and "The Simpsons." Last year he announced he was stepping down as Cambridge University's Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, a position once held by Newton and one he had held since 1979.
Report Abuse Hawking concludes that: 1 The "Big Bang" was an inevitable consequence of the laws of physics 2 "Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Well, even in abstract, these laws, forces and things (gravity and physics) cannot exist in nothingness as they are themselves things (though intangible). If they originate from nothing but are necessary for the model in which the universe would spontaneously occur, there still needs to be a separate and preceding explanation how these governing laws and driving forces came to be in the first place. The laws of physics did not come about as a result of gravity.
Report Abuse My rational side wants to say this: let the Christians believe in what they want to. Worship their God and live happily on earth, in hell or in heaven. Why do they send armies of young men and women on missionary trips around the world to convert others by destroying other's belief or other's way of life. They have to convert and "save" other's "souls" by killing them if needed (Crusaders, inquisition... If only Christians would just leave the non Christians alone, then they probably won't give themselves such bad names and protest why is everyone bashing Christians and their God. Christians and Muslims are very selfish and self centered.
Report Abuse I'm Agnostic so I don't have a team in the game. I read Hawking and he claimed there was an "instant" during the Big Bang in which time did not exist. Time is the relevant component of Entropy, Newton't second Law. So, are the Laws of Physics the inevitable result of the Laws of Physics?
Report Abuse its funny how most definition of god has to be that of monotheist type, there are much more sophisticated ways of looking at reality, science is amazing but we still know very little, dont let a power of discourse convince you anything unless you can experience something first hand.
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