Episode+3,+The+Story+of+Everything+The+Story+of+Everything

Caroline: This last episode covered quite a range of information and was a little bit harder to follow than the first two, but several of his explanations involving gravity and pressure. However Hawking’s narration did a very good job of simplifying the creation of the universe as a whole and our own solar system, starting with the Big Bang and zeroing into evolution and life on earth. It tied together some elements from the first two episodes, and focuses a lot on why we are so lucky as to have life on earth. This is probably the most controversial of the episodes because it deals with the subject of an “intelligent designer”, which is an argument some people are starting to converge behind as a way to involve God in cosmic theory. Hawking’s detailed navigation through the Big Bang first explains the colossal effect of the miniscule discrepancy in the amount of matter and antimatter in creating our universe, then continues on with a simple example of ball bearings which helped me understand the occurrence of gravity. The explanation of the creation of stars and planets Although Hawking admits that it seems incredible that life on earth occurred only as a series of chances. An example of those chances was the orderliness of our solar system due to the extremely high pressure formation of our sun, compression of hydrogen atoms within its core, creating uncontainable high pressure and temperature resulting in explosions, pushing space debris far out and allowing earth, only a rocky planet then, to develop life, he asserted he did not believe that there has to be an intelligent designer. He says we are products of this universe. After sufficiently exploring the origins of our existence, Hawking moves past to look to the future, outlining the dangers that pose a threat to our existence on earth, such as an asteroid passing dangerously close, or even striking, such as one that struck 65 million years ago that could have been responsible for killing the dinosaurs. He also considers the chance the human race could end up destroying our own home through nuclear war. He discusses a colonization of Mars, and other measures of leaving earth that humanity must take in order to survive, because the ultimate course of our solar system will be the death of life on earth and of our sun. Although technically most of “The Story of Everything” is theory, whether it be about the past or the future, this story holds the key to our survival as a race in this universe.


 * Darya:**

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As the last and longest of the three episodes, it possessed the most amount of information. In this episode, Hawking attempted to summarize the universe, beginning to end, and did so successfully. His descriptions, although confusing at times, were accompanied by 3D representation which ultimately helped me understand the lengthy material covered throughout the episode. I found that during several instances the episode was subjective as Hawking often used “in my opinion” before introducing another theory. Nevertheless, he presented several different possible theories concerning the beginning and end of the universe, as well as everything in between. In the beginning of the episode, Hawking began to give a detailed description of the Big Bang Theory, which he presented with much certainty. Although I am a firm believer in the Big Bang Theory, Hawking seemed extremely certain of its existence, which is still under speculation by different scientists and others. Most of the opposition to the theory, however, seems to come from religious groups who are firmly rooted in higher powers being responsible for the creation of the universe, which is a completely separate matter. Hawking’s detailed and simplified description related both to physics and chemistry, two classes that I have taken. One of the most significant references to chemistry that I found was in his description of the creation of a star. Hydrogen would be extremely compressed, the atoms would subsequently begin to collide rapidly and violently causing the temperature to increase on a large scale. This relates to the idea that as pressure increases, as does temperature (PV = nRT). Once the temperature increases, such explosions would cause other elements to form which are the building often found within stars. Hawking continued to describe the development of the universe and the planets, but I found his theories concerning the end of the universe particularly interesting. One of the theories he presented was the idea of the “Big Crunch,” which would result in gravity overpowering the expansion of the universe, ultimately causing a black hole to consume all of the matter in the universe. In this situation, the result would be similar to how things were prior to the Big Bang. Hawking, however, presented another theory, which is known as the idea of the “open universe,” a concept I learned in IB Physics last year. In this theory, the universe would infinitely expand until all the matter is so far apart that we would experience what Hawking referred to as the “Big Freeze.” In this situation, all living matter would also not survive. In both situations it seems that the fate of the universe is not a favorable one, but thankfully Hawking suggests we have at least 30 million years before the universe comes to an end. All of the information provided in this episode brought about a sense of awareness and was also slightly terrifying because it seems that there is an inevitable end to all forms of life in the very distant future. There also remains the possibility several catastrophes such as collisions with large meteors that could potentially wipe out all life on Earth. Regardless, I found this episode extremely interesting, containing information that in my opinion should be common knowledge among the masses. I suppose the question that remains is: how will the universe come to an end? =====

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