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  • On the Origin of Time

  • Stephen Hawking's Final Theory
  • Written by: Thomas Hertog
  • Narrated by: Ethan Kelly
  • Length: 12 hrs and 10 mins
  • 4.8 out of 5 stars (5 ratings)

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On the Origin of Time

Written by: Thomas Hertog
Narrated by: Ethan Kelly
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Publisher's Summary

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Stephen Hawking’s closest collaborator offers the intellectual superstar’s final thoughts on the cosmos—a dramatic revision of the theory he put forward in A Brief History of Time.

“This superbly written book offers insight into an extraordinary individual, the creative process, and the scope and limits of our current understanding of the cosmos.”—Lord Martin Rees

Perhaps the biggest question Stephen Hawking tried to answer in his extraordinary life was how the universe could have created conditions so perfectly hospitable to life. In order to solve this mystery, Hawking studied the big bang origin of the universe, but his early work ran into a crisis when the math predicted many big bangs producing a multiverse—countless different universes, most of which would be far too bizarre to ​harbor life.

Holed up in the theoretical physics department at Cambridge, Stephen Hawking and his friend and collaborator Thomas Hertog worked on this problem for twenty years, developing a new theory of the cosmos that could account for the emergence of life. Peering into the extreme quantum physics of cosmic holograms and venturing far back in time to our deepest roots, they were startled to find a deeper level of evolution in which the physical laws themselves transform and simplify until particles, forces, and even time itself fades away. This discovery led them 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. As Hawking’s final days drew near, the two collaborators published their theory, which proposed a radical new Darwinian perspective on the origins of our universe.

On the Origin of Time offers a striking new vision of the universe’s birth that will profoundly transform the way we think about our place in the order of the cosmos and may ultimately prove to be Hawking’s greatest legacy.

* Includes a downloadable PDF containing evidence-based diagrams and illustrations, figures, works of art, and personal portraits.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2022 Thomas Hertog (P)2022 Random House Audio

What the critics say

“[A] wonderful book about Stephen Hawking's Hawking’s ‘biggest legacy’.” Spectator

“Truly mind-stretching . . . Immensely immensely rewarding.” —The Times

"Stephen Hawking’s final theory is lucidly explained in this splendidly accessible book. Author Thomas Hertog, one of Hawking’s closest collaborators, gives us a vivid insight into Hawking as both a brilliant physicist and an astonishingly determined human being.”—Graham Farmelo, Churchill College, University of Cambridge, and author of The Strangest Man

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Difficult

Why did I rate this book the way I did? The problem is mine. I should have realized that anyone who could carry-on an intelligent conversation with Stephen Hawking would probably not be able to easily dumb-down the content of such a book to my level of understanding. As a result, it was not until chapter 8 that I grasphed the importance of the changes of thinking that Stephen had concluded.
For me, the book was difficult to read (more like a struggle) but I'm glad I persisted. The summary and conclusions of chapter 8 cannot be over-estimated, because our very exsistence depends on them,

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