Bless you Mark. At last an intelligent and cohesive response to my questions and challenges.
And so apropos, so perfect. Now having something to chew over, I will get back to you upon proper digestion. Thank you very much, John On Sat, Oct 16, 2010 at 11:16 PM, 118 <[email protected]> wrote: > Hey John, > > Looks like the answer is not 42. This coming from the Grand Wizard > himself, > see below. Sorry to burst your bubble. > > Mark > > > > Editorial Reviews > Amazon.com Review > Stephen Hawking on The Grand Design > > How can we understand the world in which we find ourselves? Over twenty > years ago I wrote *A Brief History of Time*, to try to explain where the > universe came from, and where it is going. But that book left some > important > questions unanswered. Why is there a universe--why is there something > rather > than nothing? Why do we exist? Why are the laws of nature what they are? > Did > the universe need a designer and creator? > > It was Einstein’s dream to discover the grand design of the universe, a > single theory that explains everything. However, physicists in Einstein’s > day hadn’t made enough progress in understanding the forces of nature for > that to be a realistic goal. And by the time I had begun writing *A Brief > History of Time*, there were still several key advances that had not yet > been made that would prevent us from fulfilling Einstein’s dream. But in > recent years the development of M-theory, the top-down approach to > cosmology, and new observations such as those made by satellites like > NASA’s > COBE and WMAP, have brought us closer than ever to that single theory, and > to being able to answer those deepest of questions. And so Leonard Mlodinow > and I set out to write a sequel to *A Brief History of Time* to attempt to > answer the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. The > result is *The Grand Design*, the product of our four-year effort. > > In *The Grand Design* we explain why, according to quantum theory, the > cosmos does not have just a single existence, or history, but rather that > every possible history of the universe exists simultaneously. We question > the conventional concept of reality, posing instead a "model-dependent" > theory of reality. We discuss how the laws of our particular universe are > extraordinarily finely tuned so as to allow for our existence, and show why > quantum theory predicts the multiverse--the idea that ours is just one of > many universes that appeared spontaneously out of nothing, each with > different laws of nature. And we assess M-Theory, an explanation of the > laws > governing the multiverse, and the *only* viable candidate for a complete > "theory of everything." As we promise in our opening chapter, unlike the > answer to the Ultimate Question of Life given in the *Hitchhiker’s Guide to > the Galaxy*, the answer we provide in *The Grand Design* is not, simply, > "42." > Moq_Discuss mailing list > Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. > http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org > Archives: > http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ > http://moq.org/md/archives.html > Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
