Professor Stephen W. Hawking

Professor Hawking has given many lectures to the general public. Many of these past lectures have been released in his 1993 book, 'Black Holes and Baby Universes, and other essays'. Below are some of the more recent public lectures. Included with these lectures is a Glossary of some of the terms used.

Godel and the End of Physics (written in 2002)
"In this talk, I want to ask how far can we go in our search for understanding and knowledge. Will we ever find a complete form of the laws of nature? By a complete form, I mean a set of rules that in principle at least enable us to predict the future to an arbitrary accuracy, knowing the state of the universe at one time. A qualitative understanding of the laws has been the aim of philosophers and scientists, from Aristotle onwards."

My Life in Physics (written in 2006)
"I did my first degree in Oxford. In my final examination, I was asked about my future plans. I replied, if you give me a first class degree, I will go to Cambridge. If I only get a second, I will stay in Oxford. They gave me a first. I arrived in Cambridge as a graduate student in October 1962."

The Origin of the Universe (written in 2005)
"Why are we here? Where did we come from? The answer generally given was that humans were of comparatively recent origin, because it must have been obvious, even at early times, that the human race was improving in knowledge and technology. So it can't have been around that long, or it would have progressed even more."

The Beginning of Time (written in 1996)
"In this lecture, I would like to discuss whether time itself has a beginning, and whether it will have an end. All the evidence seems to indicate, that the universe has not existed forever, but that it had a beginning, about 15 billion years ago. This is probably the most remarkable discovery of modern cosmology. Yet it is now taken for granted. We are not yet certain whether the universe will have an end."

The Nature of Space and Time
Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose gave a series of 3 lectures each at the Isaac Newton Institute in Cambridge. The full series is available in a book of the same name. Here we have compiled Stephen's contribution to the series, as well as the final debate. This is available for download as pdf format or 4 postscript files or (penrose1.ps penrose2.ps penrose3.ps penrose4.ps).

Space and Time Warps (written in 1999)
"In science fiction, space and time warps are a commonplace. They are used for rapid journeys around the galaxy, or for travel through time. But today's science fiction, is often tomorrow's science fact. So what are the chances for space and time warps."

Does God Play Dice (written in 1999)
"This lecture is about whether we can predict the future, or whether it is arbitrary and random. In ancient times, the world must have seemed pretty arbitrary. Disasters such as floods or diseases must have seemed to happen without warning or apparen t reason. Primitive people attributed such natural phenomena, to a pantheon of gods and goddesses, who behaved in a capricious and whimsical way. There was no way to predict what they would do, and the only hope was to win favour by gifts or actions."

Life in the Universe (written in 1996)
"In this talk, I would like to speculate a little, on the development of life in the universe, and in particular, the development of intelligent life. I shall take this to include the human race, even though much of its behaviour through out history, has been pretty stupid, and not calculated to aid the survival of the species."