The celebrated physicist, Stephen Hawking, died in March at the age of 76.
He was widely considered one of the most brilliant scientists of his generation. He also suffered from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a neurodegenerative disorder commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease, for most of his adult life.
Despite the inhibiting nature of this disease, he didn’t let it stop him from making scientific discoveries that changed the way that we thought about the universe.
Now, in a final gift to humanity, Hawking left behind some wisdom in his last book, Brief Answers to the Big Questions.
The book is a collection of answers to questions that people frequently asked Hawking. He was often asked about his views on religion, and addressed those in the book, reports CNN.
“There is no God. No one directs the universe,” he writes in “Brief Answers to the Big Questions.”
“For centuries, it was believed that disabled people like me were living under a curse that was inflicted by God,” he adds. “I prefer to think that everything can be explained another way, by the laws of nature.”
Other bombshells that the British scientist left his readers include the possibility of superhumans, the belief that alien life exists, the reality that time travel can’t be ruled out, and the terrifying idea that artificial intelligence could outsmart humans.
I knew there was a reason to be afraid of that Atlas robot.
“He realized that people specifically wanted his answers to these questions,” the scientist’s daughter, Lucy Hawking, who helped complete the book, told CNN.
Hawking saw the world on the brink of a “vast transformative change” when he died, she noted, adding: “He’s asking us not to go into the future blindly. How good is the track record of the human race in using advances in technology for the good of ordinary people?”
In remarks prepared by Hawking before he died, in preparation for the launch of his book, he also turned his attention to the world as it currently stands.
“With Brexit and Trump now exerting new forces in relation to immigration and the development of education, we are witnessing a global revolt against experts, and that includes scientists,” Hawking said.
Hawking had been a critic of the United Kingdom’s decision to leave the European Union, and called Donald Trump a “demagogue” in 2016.
His daughter (above) says that his greatest concern was “how divided we’ve become” and how “we’ve lost the ability to look outward”. Despite this, Hawking’s final message is a positive one:
Attempting to answer the question “How do we shape the future?” in the book’s final chapter, the scientist writes: “Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet.”
You can listen to excerpts from the audiobook here:
[source:cnn]
