Stephen Hawking and his last book

The  book  ‘Brief Answers to the Big questions ‘  was published in July ,2018  while Stephen Hawking died  in Cambridge , U.K.  on March 14,2018.

      Stephen hawking maintained  a personal archive of  his speeches , interviews and essays  which contained his responses to some of the big questions  of the day , asked by  scientists, entrepreneurs ,  political leaders and the general public  from him. The Stephen Hawking Estate , with the help of others ,compiled  and published this book, after  Hawking’s  death. The Afterword of the book  was written by  Lucy  Hawking , his daughter.

       I am inspired by  Stephen Hawking for his courage  .He suffered from Motor Neuron Disease since 1963 , but  he persevered  till his death at the age of  76 years.” At the age of seventy-five ,  completely paralysed   and able to move only  a few facial muscles , he still got up every day , put on a suit , and went to work. He had stuff to do  and was not going to let  a few trivialities get in his way”, wrote his daughter in the Afterword.

    The Big questions dealt within this book are ten , as below:

1.     Is there a God?

2.      How did it all begin?

3.     Is there other intelligent life in the universe?

4.     Can we predict the future?

5.     What is inside a black hole ?

6.     Is time travel  possible?

7.     Will we survive the Earth?

8.     Should we colonise space?

9.     Will artificial intelligence outsmart us?

10.                          How do we shape the future?

His answers  as recorded in this book  display deep wisdom and creativity , especially his answer to the last question, ’How do we shape the future?’Hawking’s questions   themselves  will keep on generating break-throughs  in times to come.

I recommend you to read this book by one of the most admirable  scientists of our time.