Brief Answers to the Big Questions

Stephen Hawking died in March 2018 at age 76. Shortly afterward, this book came out, assembled from lectures, interviews, and writings he kept in his personal archive. The idea was to gather short answers to questions the public asked him all the time, such as whether God exists, whether we are alone in the universe, and whether we will ever travel through time.

The result is a tour through ten questions, each in its own chapter. The tone is conversational, with dry humor and a desire to explain things without formulas. There are introductions by colleagues and family members, who share what it was like to work and live with him. Anyone who has ever tried to understand a tough topic online will recognize the value of a text that respects the reader's intelligence without requiring a degree.

Before diving into the answers, it is worth remembering that this summary explains what the book argues, in our own words. When the subject is big and controversial, like religion, what you read here is the author's opinion, not a verdict from science.

At age 21, Hawking was diagnosed with a degenerative disease and given only a few years to live. He lived for more than five decades, produced cutting-edge research, and became a symbol of curiosity.

The first question is the most delicate. Hawking answers that he does not believe in God as the creator of the universe. To him, the laws of nature, such as gravity and the rules of quantum physics, are enough to explain how something can arise from nothing, without needing an agent behind it. It is a point of view that sparks heated debate, and the book does not hide that.

He argues that throughout history, religion filled in the gaps of science: what people did not understand about lightning, disease, and the stars was attributed to gods. As science explains more, there is less room left for that kind of explanation.

He also says he does not believe in life after death, seeing the brain as a computer that stops working when its components fail. Still, he acknowledges that each person's worldview is a personal matter.

Many religious scientists and thinkers disagree and believe that science and faith answer different questions. The book presents one position, not the only possible one.

The second chapter tells the story of the universe: everything began about 13.8 billion years ago, in an extremely hot and dense state. From then on, space expanded, the universe cooled, and gradually atoms, stars, and galaxies formed. That number was calculated from observations of the radiation left behind by the early universe, studied by satellites.

A frequent question is what came before. Hawking, along with his colleague James Hartle, proposed that time as we know it also began right then. Asking what existed before would be like asking what lies south of the South Pole: the question loses its meaning.

He also explains that tiny variations in quantum fluctuations at the beginning may have given rise to present-day structures. In other words, galaxies are full-grown seeds from tiny early irregularities.

The idea is both beautiful and hard to prove. The authors are careful to note that some of these ideas are still hypotheses under study.