Haw The future of Quantum Cosmology.pdfVIP

The Future of Quantum Cosmology SW Hawking Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics University of Cambridge Silver Street Cambridge CB EW United Kingdom August Abstract This is a transcript of a lecture given by Professor S W Hawking for the NATO ASI conference Professor Hawking is the Lucasian Professor at the University of Cambridge England In this lecture I will describ e what I see as the frame work for quantum cosmology on the basis of M theory I shall adopt the no b oundary prop osal and shall argue that the Anthropic Principle is essential if one is to pick out a solution to represent our universe from the whole zo o of solutions allowed by M theory Cosmology used to b e regarded as a pseudo science an area where wild sp eculation was uncon strained by any reliable observations We now have lots and lots of observational data and a generally agreed picture of how the universe is evolving But cosmology is still not a prop er science in the sense that as usually practiced it has no predictive p ower Our observations tell us the present state of the universe and we can run the equations backward to calculate what the universe was like at earlier times But all that tells us is that the universe is as it is now b ecause it was as it was then To go further and b e a real science cosmology would have to predict how the universe should b e We could then test its predictions against observation like in any other science The task of making predictions in cosmology is made more di