I watched a very interesting t.v. program the other evening. It was a documentary on Stephen Hawking's search for a unified theory of everything. Although I come from an arts background, and not a science oriented schedule, I found this search, by physicists, to be very absorbing. Stephen Hawking, who was given two years to live, by his doctors, is still with us, decades later.
That made me think about the power of an individual will. At the end of the documentary, Hawking "talked" about how lucky he was...he had wonderful children, an absorbing career, full of accolades and discoveries, and his passion for his work was very clear. This gratitude from someone in a wheel chair, unable to speak without an electronic device (one word produced every four minutes, I believe), yet he appeared happy, also made me ponder. To observe this made one think about what it is that a human being needs, to feel totally fulfilled. For Hawking, his quest, the thing that clearly drives him, and all his team of physicists, is to discover a unified theory of everything.
In doing this, he is trying to mesh the study of the very small with a study of the very large. I was interested to learn of the string theory, of the concept of eleven dimensions, not just the three we're familiar with, the idea of branes (and how our entire universe might be stuck on one such huge piece of matter, much as a water droplet on a shower curtain), and was sorry that I couldn't go back to university and start to tackle some of these enormously exciting areas of research.
It also made me think of the 21st Century, and how this message of trying to connect the very small (our individual lives/concerns?) with the very large (global/international concerns?) could also be applied to daily life., in the here and now. Maybe the 20th Century was more about divisions, and the 21st will be about connections? If so, then there will be huge societal changes to reflect this different philosophy, and business will also shift. Mmmm....how to be at least "with" the change, if not slightly ahead? Maybe that's something we could all be thinking about, right now. Stephen Hawking and his life's passion can be an inspiration, even though not always easy to follow his mathematical journey. Your thoughts????
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