On the Origin of Time: Stephen Hawking's Final Theory

by Thomas Hertog

Einstein’s and Eddington’s perspectives on the beginning were steeped in the old determinism going back to Newton, to which Einstein’s classical theory of general relativity comports. Within this scheme, any beginning requires initial conditions with the same degree of tuning as the universe that evolves from them. A universe that evolves to become complex late in its evolution requires initial conditions of the same level of complexity early on. A universe that appears specially designed to bring forth life requires initial conditions that encode that same level of biofriendliness all the way back at the start. This makes it seem as if an “act of God” was involved to set our fine-tuned, biophilic universe in motion.