Found in an Op Shop, this has been on my Look For list for yonks, as it's said to be one of the best, on the subject of the very huge and the very tiny anyway. And I'm sure it is, but as much as I read every paragraph (some three times!) about 70% of it still went over the top.
Hawking tries his heart out to convey what he "sees", but there's just no language, or examples, that can transfer his knowledge into my head. I can get around the basics of Relativity and the Big Bang and the formation of galaxies, even black holes and event horizons, but Quantum Mechanics and String Theory and Antiparticles? - whoosh - straight over. And what about "imaginary numbers" and "imaginary time"!?
And why oh why do these guys use the term "infinite" so much? There is no way in God's great universe that any - ANY - human brain can visualise something of infinite volume. Or infinite mass. Or infinite time. Or - my personal favourite - something infinitely small. Isn't something infinitely small nothing!? And aren't they all oxymorons?
But that's the challenge for these people, communicating what they know. Or believe they know, so far this week. Here's an extract that shows how they struggle finding terminology....
"There are a number of different varieties of quarks, that are six flavours, which we call Up, Down, Strange, Charmed, Bottom, and Top. The first three flavours had been known since the 1960s but the Charmed quark was discovered only in 1974, the Bottom in 1977, and the Top in 1995.
Each comes in three colours, red, green and blue. It should be emphasised that these terms are just labels. Quarks are much smaller than the wavelength of visible light and so do not have any colour in the normal sense. It is just the modern physicists seem to have more imaginative ways of naming new particles and phenomena. They no longer restrict themselves to Greek."
But, I'm pleased that I made the effort, even if it did leave me feeling a touch short on intelligence, but you really need a Degree in Cosmology and another Degree in Subatomic Particles to have an even chance of grasping more than half. I mean, really truly honestly grasping it.
I'll close with this bit that caught my eye and stuck....
"Ever since the dawn of civilization, people have not been content to see events as connected and inexplicable. They have craved an understanding of the underlying order in the world. Today we still yearn to know why we are here and where we came from. Humanities deepest desire for knowledge is justification enough for our continuing quest. and our goal is nothing less than a complete description of the universe we live in."
Amen to that, Stephen old son!
Cheers...
T.R.E.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>