Stephen Hawking’s ideas on the nature of black holes and the big bang might seem far removed from earthly life, but they stem from the kinds of questions that children and curious adults contemplate: Why can’t we move around in time the way we do in space? Why do we seem to be stuck on a relentless one-way conveyor belt into the future? Was there a beginning of the universe, and if so, what happened before?
One of the great achievements of Hawking’s bestselling book “A Brief History of Time” was to connect seemingly arcane areas of theoretical physics to questions that tap into the curiosity of ordinary people. Scientists are still hashing out the nature of time today, but Hawking, who died early Wednesday at the age of 76, was a leader in the development of new ideas on the nature of time, space, matter, order, information and how the world came to be.
