“My goal is simple. It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all.”
- January 8, 1942 – March 14, 2018
- British
- Theoretical physicist, science writer
- Announced the black hole singularity theorem and Hawking radiation, and contributed to the popularization of science with his book “Talking about the Universe”
Quote
“My goal is simple. It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all.”
Explanation
In this quote, Stephen Hawking outlines his fundamental ambition as a scientist: to achieve a complete understanding of the universe—its origins, its laws, and the very reason for its existence. This goal reflects Hawking’s deep curiosity about the nature of reality, a curiosity that drove much of his life’s work. His desire to uncover the underlying principles that govern the universe and to explain why it exists at all is the driving force behind his contributions to cosmology and theoretical physics. He sought to uncover the unifying theory—a “theory of everything”—that could explain not just the forces at work within the universe, but also its creation and its ultimate fate.
Hawking’s pursuit of this goal was particularly focused on some of the biggest questions in physics: Why does the universe exist? How did it begin? What is the nature of time and space? His work on black holes, quantum mechanics, and the Big Bang theory represented steps toward answering these profound questions. For example, in his work on black holes, he famously proposed the concept of Hawking radiation, which merged quantum mechanics with general relativity and suggested that black holes could emit radiation and eventually evaporate—a concept that challenged traditional views of black holes as “invisible” and “indestructible.”
Hawking also explored the nature of time itself, especially through his work on singularities and the Big Bang. His book A Brief History of Time popularized his ideas and presented complex concepts like the Arrow of Time and the no-boundary condition for the universe, which suggested that the universe might have no beginning or end in a conventional sense. His quest was not just to explain the mechanics of how the universe works, but to uncover the deeper meaning—why it exists at all. This search for meaning in the laws of physics was not merely academic; it was a fundamental part of Hawking’s desire to understand our place in the cosmos and the ultimate purpose or randomness behind it all.
