Book: A brief history of time

During the seventies I was mostly engaged in the study of black holes, but in 1981, when I was at a conference on cosmology organized in the Vatican by the Jesuit priests, I woke up again interest in the question of the origin and death of the Universe. The Catholic Church made a big mistake in his relationship with Galileo, when trying to bend the law a question of science, announced that the Sun goes around the Earth. Now, centuries later, the Church decided to invite experts and get their advice on cosmology. At the end of the conference the participants were given an audience with the Pope. He said that the evolution of the Universe after the big Bang, you can explore, but should not venture into the big Bang, because it was the moment of Creation and therefore a Divine act. I was very glad that Dad didn't know the topic just made me report on the possibility that space-time has no boundaries, i.e. it has no beginning, and therefore no moment of Creation. I didn't want to share the fate of Galileo, with whom I think I have something in common though is that by a strange coincidence, I was born exactly 300 years after his death!

There are other models to explain the results of observations of Cygnus X-1 without the involvement of black holes, but they are quite artificial. The black hole appears to be the only perfectly natural explanation for the observations. Despite this, I made a bet with Keane Thorne of the California Institute of technology, which is actually in Cygnus X-1 black hole! For me this bet is a kind of insurance. I'm very much involved with black holes, and all my work goes down the drain if it turns out that black holes do not exist. But in this case a comfort, I won the bet, and I for four years I will be free to the magazine "Private Eye". If black holes do exist, the TRC will be a year to the magazine "Penthouse". Placing a bet in 1975, we were 80% certain that Cygnus X-1 is a black hole. Now our confidence has increased, I would say to 95%, but the bet remains in force.

The computer memory is, roughly speaking, a device containing elements that can be in one of two States. A simple example of such a device is abacus the ancient abacus. In its simplest form is a set of horizontal wires, each of which is mounted the bead. Each bead is in one of two positions. Until the memory of the computer nothing is entered, it is in a chaotic state in which both the possible locations of the beads are equiprobable (the beads on the wires distributed randomly). After the memory proteinopathy system, which we must remember, her condition will be very specific, depending on the state of the system. (Each bead on the accounts will be either in the right or in the left end of the wire). So, computer memory has moved from disorder to an ordered state. But in order to be sure that the memory is in the right state, you have to spend a certain amount of energy (for example, for throwing of beads or the power of the computer). This energy goes into heat and thereby increase the degree of disorder in the Universe. It can be shown that this increase in disorder is always greater than the increase in the orderliness of the memory itself. The need for a computer cooling fan, says that when the computer writes something to the memory, the total disorder in the Universe still increases.
The direction of time in which a computer remembers the past is the same, in which disorder increases.
Consequently, our subjective sense of direction of time, the psychological arrow of time is defined in our brain by the thermodynamic arrow of time. Like a computer, we must remember things in the same order in which entropy increases. The second law of thermodynamics becomes almost trivial. Disorder increases with time because we measure time in the direction in which disorder increases. It's hard to argue with this logic!

We live, almost no understanding of the world. Not thinking about what mechanism generates the sunlight that ensures our existence, not thinking about gravity that holds us on the Earth without letting it throw us into space. We are not interested in the atoms which we are made and from the resistance which we are substantially dependent. Except for children (who still don't know enough not to ask such serious questions), few people scratching their heads over why nature is what it is, where did the space and not whether it existed always? Could the time one day to reverse, so that the result will be preceded by the cause? Is there an insurmountable limit to human knowledge? There are even kids (I met them) who want to know how does a black hole what is the smallest particle of matter? Why do we remember the past and remember the future? If he really was chaos, then how is it that now established a visible order? And why does the universe even exist?
In our society it is accepted that parents and teachers in response to these questions for the most part, shrug their shoulders, or calling out for help vaguely remembered references to a religious legend. Some do not like such topics because they vividly reveals the narrowness of human understanding.

Galileo perhaps more than anyone else responsible for the birth of modern science.

Newton was much troubled by the lack of absolute position in space or, as it was called, absolute space, because it was contrary to his idea of the absolute God. And he actually refused to accept lack of absolute space, despite the fact that this lack resulted from laws that are open to them.

While most scientists are too busy with development of new theories that describe what is the universe, and they have no time to ask yourself why it is there. Philosophers whose work is to ask the question "why", I can't keep up with the development of scientific theories. In the eighteenth century, philosophers considered the whole human knowledge, including science, the field of its activities and engaged in discussion of questions such as: did the Universe start? But the calculations and the mathematical apparatus of science of the XIX and XX centuries. have become too complicated for philosophers and for all but specialists. Philosophers has so narrowed its requests, the most famous philosopher of our century-Wittgenstein on this occasion said: "the Only thing that remains of philosophy is the analysis of language." What a humiliation for philosophy with its great tradition from Aristotle to Kant!

From the view that space and time form a closed surface, also involve very important consequences regarding the role of God in the life of the Universe. In connection with the successes of scientific theories in describing events, most scientists came to believe that God allows the Universe to evolve according to a certain system of laws and not interfere in its development, does not violate these laws. But the laws don't say anything about how the universe looked when she came, - to wind the watch and to choose beginning still could be the work of God. While we believe that the Universe had a beginning, we can think that she was the Creator. If the universe is really completely closed and has no boundaries, no edges, then it must be neither beginning nor end: it just is, and everything! Is then the place for the Creator?