A Brief History of Eternity: A Considered Response to Stephen Hawking's a Brief History of Time

How? Why?These are the two great questions of human history. The first has fired the imaginations of great scientific thinkers and their investigations into the nature of the universe. How do planets move? How are time and space related? How did the universe begin and how will it end? In A Brief History of Eternity, Professor Rot Peacock has two purposes. First. to trace the development of cosmology, the study of the universe. From Aristotle to Einstein, he shows us how each great thinker has relied and improved upon the thoughts of his predecessors in answering the hows of the cosmos. As he traces this development, he questions Stephen Hawking's idea of a universe with no beginning or end as presented in A Brief History of Time. Using clear, ordinary language, he employs the findings of astronomy and thermodynamics to present his case for a finite universe.But Professor peacock has a second purpose. Above and beyond the hows of the universe are the whys: Why does the universe exist at all? Why does it appear to be finite? Why are the forces of nature so delicately balanced that the slightest difference would destroy all life? Science has difficulty answering these questions because they are ultimately philosophical and theological. Yet Professor Peacock believes science can give us insight into the whys of the universe and, in the final chapter, he reveals the answers which the great scientists discovered for themselves.