Hawking's Universe #6
An Answer to Everything

	This last episode of the series is perhaps the best one.  Although overdramaticized and overconfident in current theories, it presents the pros and cons of various theories of everything (TOE).  Like the other episodes, hoaky music and special effects detract from fascinating interviews with the actual scientists working on the theories.  TOEs are the attempt of modern physics to answer the simple question, "How did the Big Bang begin?"  Perhaps, by discovering the physical laws which determine how the Big Bang works, we can explain the entire Universe (refer to Episode 2 on the development of the Big Bang theory).  
	Right now, physics can explain the macro world and the micro world. Quantum mechanics and general relativity give good but incomplete pictures of universe, since they're incompatible.  Einstein's instinct was that there should be a unifying theory: "I shall never believe that God plays dice with the world."  No one else at the time shared his view, and he died with his work unfinished.
	The current TOEs are described non-mathematically: inflationary theory, quantum gravity, evolutionary theory and Superstring theory.  Their major proponents are interviewed: Alan Guth, Andrei Linde, Hawking (of course), Lee Smolin from Pennsylvania State and Edward Witten from the Institute for Advanced Study.  It's hard to judge the TOEs presented in this episode (I guess that's good, Hawking doesn't bias the presentation toward his pet theory) due to the reliance on analogies and the lack of experimental evidence.
	For example, one of the theories I hadn't heard of before was the evolutionary model of Universe formation.  Since Darwinism explains the complexity of the biological world so well (according to Smolin) maybe similar mechanisms of random mutation and natural selection have produced the complex universe we observe.  A slightly different version of this is Linde's proposal of self-reproducing Universes.  But whether Darwinism has the power to truly explain biological complexity, much less the entire universe, is still under debate.[1]  This theory just sounds like a fancy rephrasing of what any naturalistic theory is: a mixture of chance and determinism (lower case).[2]
	Now that we're talking about current science and meeting real people, human stories emerge.  Linde struggled with depression from Soviet political pressure to silence his science.  Also, ethical questions arise.  When is a theory ready to be published.  For Linde, he wouldn't publish his version of inflationary theory until all the details were worked out.  And so Guth published first, despite the fact that he knew inflation didn't predict the universe as we know it.
	According to this show, we may soon know which TOE is most correct.  Neil Turok from Cambridge University is in charge of The Planck Explorer, a satellite which will make a high resolution map of the primeval radiation from the Big Bang within the next ten years.  Supposedly, this level of detail will provide experimental evidence to differentiate between the possible theories.
	The narrator states, "The time may soon be at hand to know the Ultimate Truth."  Hawking finishes the episode (and series) with the following observation:  We could have the complete theory in a few years..."perhaps the ultimate triumph of science.  But knowing how the Universe works is not enough to tell us why it exists.  To find the answer to that question would be to know the mind of God."
	Even knowing the how can give us theological implications.  For example, Guth points out that the expansion rate of the universe is tuned just right to balance between flying apart and collapsing back together (refer to Episode 4 on the dark matter problem).  Hugh Ross uses this fine tuning in his argument for an intelligent designer.[3]
	This episode presents many questions for us to ponder: how did the Big Bang begin, have there been other Big Bangs, how can we understand the complex universe we find ourselves in, will we ever have a complete picture of the universe, when is it ethical for us to publish our scientific results, etc?  If you don't watch any other episode of this series, I recommend this one.

1.  _Darwin's Black Box_ 1996 Michael Behe, Touchstone.
2.  _Putting it All Together: Seven Patterns for Relating Science and Theology_ 1994 Richard Bube, Academic Press
3.  _The Fingerprint of God_ 1991 Hugh Ross, Promise Publishing Co.