All language subtitles for Stephen Hawkings Grand Design S01E03 Did God Create the Universe

Hello.

My name is Stephen Hawking -

physicist, cosmologist,

and something of a dreamer.

Although I cannot move

and I have to speak
through a computer,

Narrator:
in my mind, I am free...

Free to explore

the deepest questions
of the Universe.

Among them,
the deepest of all...

ls there a God who created
and controls the Universe -

from the stars and the planets

to you and me?

Finding out
takes us on a journey

through the laws of nature,

for there, I think,
lies the answer

to the age-old mystery

of how the Universe was made
and how it really works.

Check it out.

Hawking: I recently
published a book

that asked
if God created the Universe.

It caused something of a stir.

People got upset
that a scientist

should have anything to say
on matters of religion.

I have no desire
to tell anyone what to believe,

but for me,
asking if God exists

is a valid question
for science.

After all, it is hard to think

of a more important
or fundamental mystery

than what or who created
and controls the Universe.

[ Thunder crashes ]

Narrator: Long ago, the answer
was almost always the same.

Gods made everything.

[ Thunder crashes ]

The world was a scary place.

So even people as tough
as the Vikings

believed in supernatural beings

to make sense
of natural phenomena,

like lightning

or storms.

[ Thunder crashes ]

[ Thunder crashes ]

Another god, Aegir,
caused stormy seas.

But the god they feared the most
was named Skoll.

He was responsible
for the terrifying natural event

that we now call
a solar eclipse.

Skoll was a wolf god
who lived in the sky.

Sometimes, he would eat the Sun,

causing the dreadful moment
when day turned to night.

Without
a scientific explanation,

imagine how disturbing
it would have been

to see the Sun vanish.

The Vikings responded

in the only way
that made sense to them.

[ All shouting ]

They tried to scare away
the wolf.

[ Shouting stops ]

[ All cheering ]

The Vikings believed
that their actions

caused the Sun to return.

Of course, we now know
they had nothing to do with it.

The Sun would have
reappeared anyway.

It turns out that the Universe

is not as supernatural
or mysterious as it seems.

But it takes more courage
than even the Vikings had

to discover the truth.

Mere mortals like you and I

can understand
how the Universe works.

This was realized
long before the Vikings

in ancient Greece.

In about 300 B.C.,

a philosopher called Aristarchus
was fascinated by eclipses, too,

especially eclipses of the Moon.

He was brave enough to question

whether they really were caused
by gods.

Aristarchus was
a true scientific pioneer.

He studied the heavens carefully

and reached a bold conclusion.

He realized the eclipse was
actually the shadow of the Earth

passing over the Moon

and not a divine event.

Liberated by this discovery,

he was able to work out

what was really going on
above his head

and draw diagrams that showed
the true relationship

of the Sun...

The Earth...

And the Moon.

From there, he reached even more
remarkable conclusions.

He deduced that the Earth was
not the center of the Universe,

as everyone had thought,

but instead orbits the Sun.

In fact, understanding
this arrangement

explains all eclipses.

When the Moon casts its shadow
on the Earth,

that's a solar eclipse.

And when the Earth
shades the Moon,

that's a lunar eclipse.

But Aristarchus
took it even further.

He suggested the stars were not
chinks in the floor of heaven,

as his contemporaries believed,

but that stars
were other suns like ours,

only a very long way away.

What a stunning realization
it must have been.

The Universe is a machine

governed by principles,
or laws,

laws that can be understood
by the human mind.

Hawking: I believe the
discovery of these laws

has been humankind's
greatest achievement,

for it's these laws of nature,
as we now call them,

that will tell us
whether we need a God

to explain the Universe at all.

For centuries, it was believed
that disabled people like me

were living under a curse
inflicted by God.

While I suppose it's possible

that I've upset someone
up there,

I prefer to think

that everything can be
explained another way -

by the laws of nature.

So, what exactly is
a law of nature,

and why is it so powerful?

I'll show you
with a game of tennis.

Narrator: Tennis is governed
by two sets of laws.

One set is man-made -

the rules of the game.

They govern things such as
the size of the court,

the height of the net,

and what determines
if a shot is in...

or if a shot is out.

These rules
could conceivably be changed

if the governing body of tennis
so desired.

But the other set of laws
that apply to the game

are fixed, immutable.

They govern
what happens to the ball...

When it is hit.

The force and angle
of the racket strike

determines
exactly what happens next.

The laws of nature

are a description
of how things actually work

in the past, present,
and future.

In tennis,

the ball always goes
exactly where they say it will.

And there are many other laws
at work here, too.

They govern everything
that is going on -

from how the energy of the shot

is produced
in the players' muscles...

to the speed at which
the grass grows

beneath their feet.

But what's really important
is that these physical laws,

as well as being unchangeable,
are universal.

They apply not just
to the flight of a ball

but to the motion of a planet

and everything else
in the Universe.

Unlike laws made by humans,

the laws of nature
cannot ever be broken.

That's why they are so powerful

and, when seen
from a religious standpoint,

controversial, too.

Hawking: if you accept,
as I do,

that the laws of nature
are fixed,

then it doesn't take long
to ask,

what role is there for God?

This is a big part
of the contradiction

between science and religion.

And although my views
have recently made headlines,

it is actually
an ancient conflict.

[ Bell tolls ]

Narrator: Back in 1.277,

Pope John XXl felt so threatened
by the idea of laws of nature

that he decreed them a heresy.

Unfortunately, that did nothing
to change the law governing gravity.

A few months later,

the palace roof collapsed
and fell on the Pope's head.

[ Wood cracking ]

[ Bell tolling ]

But organized religion
soon found a solution.

For the next few hundred years,

it was simply stated

that the laws of nature
were the work of God,

and God could break them
if he wished to.

This view was reinforced

by the idea
that our perfect blue planet

was quite still
at the center of it all,

that all the stars and planets
rotated around the Earth

like some carefully designed
clockwork.

Aristarchus' idea
to the contrary

had been long forgotten.

But humans
are naturally inquisitive,

and some,
such as Galileo Galilei,

couldn't help but look
at God's clockwork once more.

It was 1609, and this time,

the results
would change everything.

Galileo is the founder
of modern-day science

and one of my heroes.

He thought, as I do,

that if you looked at
the Universe closely enough,

you could discern
what was really going on.

He was so determined

that he perfected lenses that,
for the first time,

could magnify the night sky
by 20 times.

Carefully, he assembled them

into a telescope.

From his house in Padua,

he used this telescope

to study Jupiter

night after night

and made
a wonderful discovery -

three tiny dots very close
to the giant planet.

To begin with, he thought
the dots must be very faint stars,

but then as he watched
for a few nights,

he saw that they moved.

And then a fourth dot appeared.

Sometimes, one of them
would vanish behind Jupiter

and then reappear.

He realized they had to be moons
circling the vast planet.

Here was proof positive

that at least some objects
do not orbit the Earth.

Inspired by this discovery,
Galileo went on to prove

that the Earth must,
in fact, orbit the Sun.

Aristarchus had been right
all along.

Galileo's discoveries triggered
a revolution in thought

that would ultimately loosen
the grip of religion over science.

But back in the 17th century,

they got him in a lot of trouble
with the church.

He narrowly avoided execution

by recanting
his so-called heresy

and was confined to house arrest

for the last nine years
of his life.

Legend has it

that even as he confessed his sin,
he muttered,

"but it does move."

Over the next 300 years,

as more and more of the laws
of nature were discovered,

science began to explain
all kinds of things -

from lightning, earthquakes,
and storms

to what makes the stars shine.

[ Thunder rumbling ]

Each new discovery

further removed the need
for a God.

After all, if you know
the science behind an eclipse,

you're much less likely
to believe

in wolf gods
that live in the sky.

Hawking: Science does
not deny religion,

just offers
a simpler alternative.

But several mysteries remain.

After all, if the Earth moves,

could it be God that moves it?

Ultimately,
did God create the Universe

in the first place?

Narrator: In 1985, I attended
a conference on cosmology

at the Vatican in Rome.

The gathering of scientists

had an audience
with Pope John Paul ll.

He told us that it was okay

to study the workings
of the Universe.

But we should not ask questions
about its origin,

for that was the work of God.

Hawking: I am glad to say
I, for one,

haven't followed his advice.

I can't simply switch off
my curiosity.

I believe
it's a cosmologist's duty

to try and work out
where the Universe came from.

Luckily, it's not quite
as difficult as it seems.

Narrator: Despite the complexity
and variety of the Universe,

it turns out that to make one,

you need just three ingredients.

Let's imagine we could list them
in some kind of cosmic cookbook.

So, what are
the three ingredients we need

to cook up a Universe?

The first is matter -

stuff that has mass.

Matter is all around us,

in the ground
beneath our feet...

and out in space...

dust, rock, ice,

liquids, vast clouds of gas,

massive spirals of stars

each containing
billions of suns,

stretching away
for incredible distances.

The second thing you need
is energy.

Even if we've never thought
about it,

we all know what energy is.

Something we encounter
every day.

Look up at the Sun,

and you can feel it
on your face...

energy produced by a star
93 million miles away.

Energy permeates the Universe...

driving the processes that
keep it a dynamic,

endlessly changing place.

So, we have matter,
and we have energy.

The third thing we need
to build a Universe

is space...

Lots of space.

You can call the Universe
many things -

Awesome...

Beautiful...

Violent.

But one thing you can't call it
is cramped.

Wherever we look,
we see space...

And more space
and even more space,

stretching in all directions.

It's enough
to make your head spin.

So, where could all this matter,
energy, and space come from?

We had no idea until
well into the 20th century.

[ Bell tolling ]

The answer came from
the insights of one man...

Probably
the most remarkable scientist

who has ever lived.

His name was Albert Einstein.

Sadly, I never got to meet him,

since I was only 13
when he died.

Einstein realized
something quite remarkable -

that two of the main ingredients
needed to make a universe,

mass and energy,

are basically the same thing,

two sides of the same coin,
if you like.

His famous equation, e=mc�,

simply means that mass

can be thought of
as a kind of energy

and vice versa.

So, instead
of three ingredients,

we can now say
the Universe has just two -

energy and space.

So, where did all this energy
and space come from?

The answer was found

after decades of work
by scientists.

Space and energy
were spontaneously created

in an event we now call

the Big Bang.

At the moment of the Big Bang,

an entire universe full
of energy came into existence,

and with it, space.

It all inflated,

just like a balloon
being blown up.

So, where did all this energy
and space come from?

How does an entire universe
full of energy,

the awesome vastness of space
and everything in it,

simply appear out of nothing?

For some, this is where God
comes back into the picture.

It was God that created
the energy and the space.

The Big Bang
was the moment of creation.

But science tells
a different story.

At the risk of getting myself
into trouble...

Hawking: I think
we can understand

far more the natural phenomena
that terrified the Vikings.

We can even go beyond
the beautiful symmetry

of matter and energy
discovered by Einstein.

We can use the laws of nature

to grasp the very origins
of the Universe

and discover
the existence of a God

as the only way to explain it.

As I was growing up in England
after the Second World War,

it was a time of austerity.

We were taught that you never
get something for nothing.

But now,
after a lifetime of work,

I think that, in fact, you can
get a whole universe for free.

Narrator: The great mystery
at the heart of the Big Bang

is to explain how an entire
fantastically enormous Universe

of space and energy
can materialize out of nothing.

The secret lies

in one of the strangest facts
about our cosmos.

The laws of physics
demand the existence

of something called
negative energy.

To get your head around
this weird but crucial concept,

let me draw a simple analogy.

Imagine a man
wants to build a hill

on a flat piece of land.

The hill will represent
the Universe.

To make this hill,
he digs a hole in the ground

and uses that soil
to build his hill.

But, of course,
he's not just making a hill.

He's also making a hole -

in effect, a negative version
of the hill.

The stuff that was in the hole
has now become the hill.

So it all
perfectly balances out.

This is the principle
behind what happened

right at the beginning
of the Universe.

When the Big Bang produced
a vast amount of positive energy,

it simultaneously produced

the same amount
of negative energy.

In this way,
the positive and the negative

add up to zero -

always.

It's another law of nature.

So, where is all this
negative energy today?

It's in the third ingredient
in our cosmic cookbook.

It's in space.

This may sound odd,

but according
to the laws of nature

concerning gravity and motion,

laws that are among
the oldest in science,

space itself is a vast store
of negative energy -

enough to ensure that everything
adds up to zero.

I'll admit that unless
mathematics is your thing,

this is hard to grasp,

but it's true.

The endless web of billions
upon billions of galaxies,

each pulling on one another
by the force of gravity,

acts like
a giant storage device.

The Universe is like
an enormous battery

storing negative energy.

The positive side of things -

the mass and the energy
we see today -

is like the hill.

The corresponding hole,
or negative side of things,

is spread throughout space.

Hawking: So, what does that mean

on our quest to find out
if there is a God?

It means that if the Universe
adds up to nothing,

then you don't need a God
to create it.

The Universe is
the ultimate free lunch.

Narrator: Since we know

that the positive and negative
in the Universe adds up to zero,

all we have to do now
is work out what -

or, dare I say, who -

triggered the whole process
in the first place.

What could cause the spontaneous
appearance of a universe?

At first,
it seems a baffling problem.

After all, in our daily lives,

things don't simply materialize
out of the blue.

You can't just click
your fingers

and summon up a cup of coffee
when you feel like one, can you?

You have to make it
out of other stuff,

like coffee beans,

water,

perhaps some milk and sugar.

But travel down
into this coffee cup...

Through the milk particles...

Down to the atomic level...

And right down
to the subatomic level...

And you enter a world

where conjuring something
out of nothing

is possible...

At least for a short while.

That's because at this scale,

particles such as protons

behave according to
the laws of nature

we call quantum mechanics.

And they really can appear
at random,

stick around for a while,

and then vanish again...

To reappear somewhere else.

Since we know the Universe
itself was once very small -

smaller than a proton,
in fact -

this means something
quite remarkable.

It means the Universe itself,

in all of its mind-boggling
vastness and complexity,

can simply have popped
into existence

without violating
the known laws of nature.

From that moment on,

vast amounts of energy
were released

as space itself expanded.

A place to store
all the negative energy

needed to balance the books.

But, of course,
the critical question

is raised again.

Did God create the quantum laws

that allowed the Big Bang
to occur?

In a nutshell...

Hawking: Do we need a
God to set it all up

so that a Big Bang could...

Bang?

I have no desire
to offend anyone of faith,

but I think science

has a more compelling
explanation

than a divine creator.

Our everyday experience
makes us convinced

that everything that happens
must be caused

by something that occurred
earlier in time.

So it's natural for us
to assume that something -

perhaps God -

must have caused the Universe
to come into existence.

But when we're talking about
the Universe as a whole,

that isn't necessarily so.

Let me explain.

Imagine a river

flowing down a mountainside.

What caused the river?

Well, perhaps the rain -

rain that fell
earlier in the mountains.

But, then,
what caused the rain?

A good answer
would be the Sun -

the Sun that shone on the ocean

and lifted water vapor
up into the sky

and made clouds.

Okay.

So, what caused the Sun
to shine?

Well, if we look inside,

we see the process
known as fusion,

in which hydrogen atoms
join to form helium,

releasing vast quantities
of energy in the process.

So far, so good.

Where does the hydrogen
come from?

Answer -

the Big Bang.

But here's the crucial bit.

The laws of nature themselves

tell us that not only
can the Universe

have popped into existence
like a proton

and have required nothing
in terms of energy...

But also that it is possible

that nothing caused
the Big Bang.

Nothing!...

Narrator:
The explanation lies back
with the theories of Einstein

and his insights into how space
and time in the Universe

are fundamentally intertwined.

Something very wonderful
happened to time

at the instant of the Big Bang.

Time itself began.

To understand
this mind-boggling idea,

consider one of these -

a black hole floating in space.

A typical black hole
is a star so massive

that it has collapsed in
on itself.

It's so massive that not even
light can escape its gravity,

which is why it's
almost perfectly black.

Its gravitational field
is so powerful,

it doesn't only warp
and distort light

but also time.

To see how,

imagine a clock
is being sucked into it.

[ Clock ticking ]

As the clock gets closer
and closer to the black hole,

it begins to get slower
and slower.

[ Ticking slows ]

Time itself begins to slow down.

Now imagine the clock
as it enters the black hole.

Well, assuming, of course,

it could withstand the extreme
gravitational forces,

the clock would actually stop.

[ Ticking stops ]

It stops not because it's broken

but because
inside the black hole itself,

time doesn't exist.

And that's exactly what happened
at the start of the Universe.

Hawking: The role played by time

at the beginning
of the Universe is, I believe,

the final key to removing
the need for a grand designer

and revealing how the Universe
created itself.

Narrator:
As we travel back in time

towards the moment
of the Big Bang...

the Universe gets smaller

and smaller and smaller...

until it finally comes
to a point

where the whole Universe
is in a space so small

that it is, in effect,

a single,
infinitesimally small,

infinitesimally dense
black hole.

And just as with
modern-day black holes

floating around in space,

the laws of nature dictate
something quite extraordinary.

They tell us that here, too,

time itself must come to a stop.

You can't get to a time
before the Big Bang

because there was no
"before the Big Bang."

We have finally found something
that doesn't have a cause,

because there was no time
for a cause to exist in.

For me, this means there is
no possibility of a creator

because there is no time
for a creator to have existed.

Since time itself began
at the moment of the Big Bang,

it was an event that could not
have been caused or created

by anyone or anything.

So, science has given us

the answer we set out
to discover,

an answer that took

more than 3,000 years
of human endeavor.

We have discovered
how the laws of nature,

acting on the mass and energy
of the Universe,

started a process that would
eventually produce us,

sitting here on our planet

pretty pleased
at having worked it all out.

So, when people ask me
if a God created the Universe,

I tell them that the question
itself makes no sense.

Time didn't exist
before the Big Bang,

so there is no time for God
to make the Universe in.

It's like asking for directions
to the edge of the Earth.

The Earth is a sphere.

It doesn't have an edge,

so looking for it
is a futile exercise.

Hawking: We are each free
to believe what we want,

and it's my view that
the simplest explanation is

there is no God.

No one created the Universe,
and no one directs our fate.

This leads me
to a profound realization.

There is probably no heaven
and no afterlife, either.

We have this one life
to appreciate

the grand design
of the Universe.

And for that,
I extremely grateful.