On the Origin of Time: My journey with Stephen Hawking into the Big Bang

recording of a live presentation І 13:30-14:30 І Hall LABORATORY with Aurubis І young adults, adults

Perhaps the biggest question Stephen Hawking tried to answer in his extraordinary career was how the universe could have created conditions so perfectly hospitable to life. Pondering this mystery led him to study the big bang origin, but his early work ran into a crisis when the math predicted many big bangs producing lifeless universes.

Holed up in the theoretical physics department at Cambridge, Hawking and Thomas Hertog worked shoulder to shoulder for twenty years, to develop a new theory of the cosmos that could account for the emergence of life. Venturing far back in time, they were startled to find a deeper level of evolution in which physical laws transform and simplify until particles, forces, and even time itself fades away. This led to a revolutionary idea: The laws of physics are not set in stone but are born and co-evolve as the universe they govern takes shape.

On the Origins of Time takes you on a quest to understand questions bigger than our universe. It offers a radical new Darwinian perspective on the birth of the universe that can profoundly transform the way we think about our place in the order of the cosmos.

Don’t forget to get a copy of Thomas Hertog’s book from the Festival bookstore.

In English.
In partnership with Ciela.