《剑桥大学霍金.docVIP

S.W. Hawking Remarks, Cambridge University Origin of the Universe 霍金在剑桥大学的演讲：宇宙起源 演讲人物 斯蒂芬·威廉·霍金（Stephen William Hawking），英国剑桥大学应用数学及理论物理学系教授，当代最重要的广义相对论和宇宙论家，是当今享有国际盛誉的伟人之一，被称为在世的最伟大的科学家，还被称为“宇宙之王”。70年代他与彭罗斯一起证明了著名的奇性定理，为此他们共同获得了1988年的沃尔夫物理奖。他因此被誉为继爱因斯坦之后世界上最著名的科学思想家和最杰出的理论物理学家。他还证明了黑洞的面积定理，即随着时间的增加黑洞的面积不减。这很自然使人将黑洞的面积和热力学的熵联系在一起。 原文 The problem of the origin of the universe, is a bit like the old question: Which came first, the chicken, or the egg. In other words, what agency created the universe. And what created that agency. Or perhaps, the universe, or the agency that created it, existed forever, and didnt need to be created. Up to recently, scientists have tended to shy away from such questions, feeling that they belonged to metaphysics or religion, rather than to science. However, in the last few years, it has emerged that the Laws of Science may hold even at the beginning of the universe. In that case, the universe could be self contained, and determined completely by the Laws of Science. The debate about whether, and how, the universe began, has been going on throughout recorded history. Basically, there were two schools of thought. Many early traditions, and the Jewish, Christian and Islamic religions, held that the universe was created in the fairly recent past. For instance, Bishop Usher calculated a date of four thousand and four BC, for the creation of the universe, by adding up the ages of people in the Old Testament. One fact that was used to support the idea of a recent origin, was that the Human race is obviously evolving in culture and technology. We remember who first performed that deed, or developed this technique. Thus, the arguement runs, we can not have been around all that long. Otherwise, we would have already progressed more than we have. In fact, the biblical date for the creation, is not that far off the date of the end of the last Ice Age, which is when modern humans seem first to have appeared. On the other hand, some peopl