Brief Answers to The Big Questions
I couldn’t help but think when listening to Brief Answers to Big Questions by Stephen Hawking that we’re doing ourselves as a society a disservice by failing to inspire more young children to pursue careers in the sciences. The evening before reading this I sat at home explaining to my stepdaughter the basics of the big bang, the ongoing expansion of the universe and the theoretical concept of time travel through wormholes. The conversation kept her far more engaged than I’ve seen any of her school studies do.
I do appreciate that by design schools need to focus on teaching against a specific curriculum in order to prepare students for standardised testing. We shall leave aside for the purposes of this review my thoughts and concerns on the general school curriculum. However, surely, we’re missing something if we don’t encourage children at an early age to feed their curiosity across different disciplines by giving them a taste of how exciting a topic can be rather than chasing them away through boredom.
Maybe not everyone has a deep interest in cosmology, physics and some of the deeper questions of how we came to be however I think anyone can find value and enjoyment from Brief Answers to Big Questions. The book consists of transcribed responses to questions posed to Hawking over the years covering questions such as ‘is there a god?’ ‘Will AI outsmart us?’ and ‘Should we colonise space?’ amongst others. As I listened, I couldn’t help but wish we’d manage to keep Hawking with us a bit longer to see what he’d make of the recent leaps in advancement for some of the topics he touches on during the book.
Who’s it for
I’d recommend this to anyone with even a passing curiosity on some of the big questions about the universe, our place in it and the future. You’ll both learn from it but also, I think come away with a greater appreciation of the universe we live in but also the challenges that lay ahead of us. I’d certainly recommend it for anyone who wants to spark interest in their children on the topic as I often find that questions of the universe captivate attention if presented in the right way. Hawking achieves that resoundingly in this relatively short, yet deeply insightful read.