This book by Melissa McDaniel was more of a biography than a mathematical book, like stephen hawking biography the other books in its “Great Achievers” series. The most interesting fact about his life, to me, was that his entire family was filled with intellectuals. Also, even though people have idolized him for being a genius and then blame him for all his mistakes. Even though he is a genius, I don’t think they realize he is also human.
On the math topics of the book, regarding the first chapter, even though the book does not show the math behind the problems I could imagine them to be very difficult.
For instance, when Stephen Hawking said black holes can radiate heat it even contradicted what I thought. If not even light can escape a black hole, how will heat be able to? Then when he talked about the twin particles and how one particle escaped as radiation because its twin was sucked by a black hole, it seemed so simple and so ingenuous to me.
It took him three years and brought everyone a little closer to the Grand Unification Theory.
What stuck with me most, though, was the “no boundary” model of the universe. Stating that is like an inflating balloon. Once you reach the North Pole, or the Big Bang, you can’t go any further only south. And vice versa for the South Pole, and the Big Crunch. I don’t completely understand as to how the universe simply is and had no beginning.
Even the balloon had to be created in the first place. The universe simply popping into existence or just existing forever just doesn’t comply with normal laws of physics. Having no beginning nor end seems like the Hindu/Buddhist cycle of rebirth. Except without the dying and reborn. Perhaps the universe WILL die and be reborn but we haven’t seen anything like that yet.
In the comedy show “Futurama” the main protagonist, Fry, is able to see the Big Crunch and the universe implode on itself. After that though, the single point that the universe is focused in explodes outward in a big bang. Although this has no mathematical basis, it is still an interesting explanation of the “no boundary” model and would be interesting to learn more about.
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