On the Origin of Time : Stephen Hawking’s Final Theory : Thomas Hertog (ISBN 978-1804991121, Ballantine Books)

I borrowed this book from my father in law who was very enthousiast about it. The book already made it to the New York Times bestseller list. Thomas Hertog is professor theoretical Physics and cosmology at the KUL in Leuven, Belgium and was recently a guest in the radio program Voorproevers with Annemie Peeters to talk about this book. You can still listen to the interview on VRT Max. In 2021 Thomas Hertog visited the Interne Keuken podcast to talk about the big bang and the role of George Lemaitre in that discovery. You can still listen to the podcast on the VRT site. After his studies at the KUL Hertog went to Cambridge where he got this PhD with Stephen Hawking. Hertog and Hawking worked together on the Expansion of the universe. This book discusses the beginning of the universe. After introducting the big bang theory Hertog goes on to discuss the meaning of time and its Origin. This leads to questions like : was there something before the beginning of our universe, does it even have meaning to talk about what was before the beginning and what do we know about the laws of nature at the very beginning ? This leads back to the apparent incompatibility of general relativity theory that describes the large scale structure and evolution of the universe today and quantum mechanics which must have governed the evolution of the universe in the very early stages. In In the last part Hertog describes the view of the universe as some kind of hologram in which the viewpoint of the observer determines if quantum mechanical behaviour is observed or classical general relativity. This was a novel concept for me and the ideas described are very complex. Sometimes I thought I could follow the reasoning of the author only to realise later on that I didn’t really get it. It is an interesting theory but it will require a reread to try and come a better understanding of the theory.