לפי פרופ’ הוקינג, דרך שילוב תורת היחסות של איינשטיין עם תורת הקוונטים ניתן להסביר את מקורו של היקום והתפתחותו. פרופ’ הוקינג, הצהיר, כי; “אנו קרובים להבנת מקורו של היקום, אך יש דרך ארוכה עוד לפנינו”.
אלפי אנשים הגיעו לשמוע את הרצאתו של פרופ’ סטיבן הוקינג על מקור היקום
יותר מאלף אנשים מילאו את אולם מקסיקו שבקמפוס הר הצופים של האוניברסיטה העברית כדי לשמוע את המדען הבריטי המפורסם, פרופ’ סטיבן הוקינג, מרצה על “מקור היקום”.
הרצאתו של פרופ’ הוקינג באוניברסיטה העברית נערכה ביום האחרון של ביקורו בישראל. רבבות ביקשו להיות נוכחים בהרצאתו, הרבה מעבר למקומות הפנויים באולם ולכן אנשים רבים נאלצו לצפות בפרופ’ הוקינג, בשידור ישיר דרך מסכים שבאולמות נוספים בקמפוס הר הצופים.
מקובל להגיד שפרופ’ סטיבן הוקינג הוא הפיזיקאי התיאורטיקני המבריק ביותר מאז אלברט איינשטיין. פרופ’ הוקינג פורש בהרצאתו מספר תיאוריות קוסמולוגיות החל מהרעיון המוקדם המדבר על יקום שהיה קיים מאז ומתמיד וכלה בגישה השולטת כיום לפיה, ליקום הייתה התחלה והוא ממשיך להשתנות באופן תמידי.
לפי פרופ’ הוקינג, דרך שילוב תורת היחסות של איינשטיין עם תורת הקוונטים ניתן להסביר את מקורו של היקום והתפתחותו. פרופ’ הוקינג, הצהיר, כי; “אנו קרובים להבנת מקורו של היקום, אך יש דרך ארוכה עוד לפנינו”.
פרופ’ הוקינג סובל ממחלת לו גריג – ALS שהיא מחלה ניוונית של מערכת העצבים אשר הפכה אותו למשותק בכל ארבע הגפיים. הוא מסוגל לדבר רק דרך סינתיסייזר של קול ממוחשב באמצעות קריצת העפעפיים שלו.
הכנה רבה נעשתה לקראת ביקור זה של פרופ’ הוקינג מכיוון שעקב מצבו בריאותו הוא היה צריך להקליט מראש את הרצאותיו ולענות על שאלות מראש.
להלן תמליל הרצאתו המלאה של פרופ’ הוקינג;
Speech by Prof. Stephen Hawking at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
December 14, 2006
Can you hear me.
According to the Boshongo people of central Africa, in the beginning there was only darkness, water, and the great god Bumba. One day Bumba, in pain from a stomach ache, vomited up the sun. The sun dried up some of the water, leaving land. Still in pain, Bumba vomited up the moon, the stars, and then some animals, the leopard, the crocodile, the turtle, and, finally man.
פרופ’ הוקינג; “אנו קרובים להבנת מקורו של היקום, אך יש דרך ארוכה עוד לפנינו”.
This creation myth, like many others, tries to answer the questions we all ask. Why are we here? Where did we come from? The answer generally given was that humans were of comparatively recent origin, because it must have been obvious, even at early times, that the human race was improving in knowledge and technology. So it can’t have been around that long, or it would have progressed even more. For example, according to Bishop Usher, the Book of Genesis placed the creation of the world at 9 in the morning, on October the 27th, 4,004 BC. On the other hand, the physical surroundings, like mountains and rivers, change very little in a human life time. They were therefore thought to be a constant background, and either to have existed for ever as an empty landscape, or to have been created at the same time as the humans.
Not everyone however, was happy with the idea that the universe had a beginning. For example, Aristotle, the most famous of the Greek philosophers, believed the universe had existed for ever. Something eternal is more perfect than something created. He suggested the reason we see progress, was that floods, or other natural disasters, had repeatedly set civilization back to the beginning. The motivation for believing in an eternal universe was the desire to avoid invoking divine intervention, to create the universe, and set it going. Conversely, those who believed the universe had a beginning, used it as an argument for the existence of God, as the first cause, or prime mover of the universe.
If one believed that the universe had a beginning, the obvious question was: what happened before the beginning. What was God doing before He made the world. Was He preparing Hell for people who asked such questions? The problem of whether or not the universe had a beginning, was a great concern to the German philosopher, Immanuel Kant. He felt there were logical contradictions, or Antimonies, either way. If the universe had a beginning, why did it wait an infinite time before it began? He called that the thesis. On the other hand, if the universe had existed for ever, why did it take an infinite time to reach the present stage? He called that the anti thesis. Both the thesis, and the anti thesis, depended on Kant’s assumption, along with almost everyone else, that time was Absolute. That is to say, it went from the infinite past, to the infinite future, independently of any universe that might or might not exist in this background.
This is still the picture in the mind of many scientists today. However in 1915, Einstein introduced his revolutionary General Theory of Relativity. In this, space and time were no longer absolute, no longer a fixed background to events. Instead, they were dynamical quantities that were shaped by the matter and energy in the universe. They were defined only within the universe, so it made no sense to talk of a time before the universe began. It would be like asking for a point south of the South Pole. It is not defined.
If the universe was essentially unchanging in time, as was generally assumed before the 1920s, there would be no reason that time should not be defined arbitrarily far back. Any so-called beginning of the universe would be artificial, in the sense that one could extend the history back to earlier times. Thus it might be that the universe was created last year, but with all the memories and physical evidence, to look like it was much older. This raises deep philosophical questions about the meaning of existence. I shall deal with these by adopting what is called, the positivist approach. In this, the idea is that we interpret the input from our senses in terms of a model we make of the world. One can not ask whether the model represents reality, only whether it works. A model is a good model, if first it interprets a wide range of observations, in terms of a simple and elegant model. And second, if the model makes definite predictions that can be tested, and possibly falsified, by observation.
In terms of the positivist approach, one can compare two models of the universe. One in which the universe was created last year, and one in which the universe existed much longer. The Model in which the universe existed for longer than a year, can explain things like identical twins, that have a common cause more than a year ago.
On the other hand, the model in which the universe was created last year, can not explain such events. So the first model is better. One can not ask whether the universe really existed before a year ago, or just appeared to. In the positivist approach, they are the same.
In an
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