Professor Stephen Hawking's final theory on the origin of the universe, which he worked on in collaboration with Professor Thomas Hertog from KU Leuven, has been published today in the Journal of High Energy Physics. The theory, which was submitted for publication before Hawking's death...
Hawking's earlier 'no boundary theory' predicted that if you go back in time to the beginning of the universe, the universe shrinks and closes off like a sphere, but this new theory represents a step away from the earlier work. "Now we're saying that there is a boundary in our past,...
The theory of eternal inflation that Hawking and Hertog put forward is based on string theory: a branch of theoretical physics that attempts to reconcile gravity and general relativity with quantum physics, in part by describing the fundamental constituents of the universe as tiny vibrating strings. ...
The multiverse challenges science as we know it, and Hawking wasn't pleased with it. But our journey to the edges of time has since reshaped our vision of the cosmos, and ourselves. When I first met Stephen Hawking in his Cambridge office in 1998 he had mixed feelings about the multivers...