Chapter 8 The Origin and Fate of the Universe Summary and Analysis

If only Einstein's general theory of relativity is used, the universe must have a beginning in the big bang and an end either in a big crunch back to a singularity or into many black hole singularities. However, if quantum mechanics is used—especially the uncertainty principle which states that the whereabouts of a particle can never be determined, only the probability of its whereabouts—then several mysteries of the observed universe are explained and a startling conclusion results: the universe has always existed and always will, and so there is no need for a creator God.

Hawking points out that mathematics is only useful for describing what we observe in the known universe. Regarding the origination of the universe, the mathematical problem which exists...