Are the laws of physics fixed, or do they evolve alongside the universe itself?
In short: Stephen Hawking spent his final two decades collaborating with Thomas Hertog to solve a profound mystery: why our universe is so perfectly hospitable to life. Their search led to a radical, Darwinian perspective on the cosmos, suggesting that physical laws are not immutable, but emerge and transform as the universe develops.
The collaboration between Stephen Hawking and Thomas Hertog began in 1998, spanning twenty years of intense theoretical work at the University of Cambridge. Hawking’s earlier research into the Big Bang had hit a significant crisis; his mathematical models predicted a multiverse filled with countless universes, most of which were far too bizarre to support life. This posed a fundamental problem: how could our specific universe emerge with such life-friendly conditions?
To address this, Hawking and Hertog explored the quantum nature of the Big Bang. As they delved deeper into the origins of the cosmos, they discovered a level of evolution where physical laws begin to simplify and transform. At this extreme threshold, particles, forces, and even the concept of time itself fade away. This led them to the revolutionary conclusion that there may have been a time when time did not exist at all.
Their final theory proposes that the laws of physics are not set in stone. Instead, they are born and co-evolve as the universe takes shape, a concept Hertog describes as a Darwinian perspective on cosmic origins. This framework offers a striking new vision that links the birth of the universe directly to our own existence, potentially serving as Hawking’s most significant intellectual legacy. Hertog, a professor at the University of Leuven, presented these findings at the Royal Institution on March 28, 2023, fundamentally shifting how we perceive our place within the cosmic order.
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- Summary by Intellect · source: On the origin of time – with Thomas Hertog
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