ordinary (heroic) treatment of patients. Kuhse shows that the distinction is not between modes of treatment, but rather between those lives that are considered worthy of preservation and those that are not.

The final chapter, "From 'Sanctity of Life' to 'Quality of Life,' " begins with the principle espoused by John Stuart Mill in On Liberty that "the only legitimate basis

A Brief History of Time from the Big Bang to Black Holes by Stephen W. Hawking (New York: Bantam, 1988), 198 pp., $18.95.

T he idea that some natural unifying principle governs the universe, and that

the knowleçlge of that principle is accessible to the human mind, goes back to Thales. For Thales, the underlying principle was water. For his fellow Milesian Anaximenes, it was air. For the Pythagoreans, it was numbers—mathematics. Two thousand years later, Isaac Newton said the underlying principle of the universe was gravity, which he described mathematically. Three hundred years after this, Newton's latest successor as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cam-bridge University, Stephen W. Hawking, still seeks that unifying principle within the mathematical description of gravity. And, like Newton, Hawking believes that the goal of this quest is nothing less than knowing the mind of God.

Sounds like religion, doesn't it? And per-haps it is. This could help explain why Hawking's book, A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes, is a best-seller. As Carl Sagan points out in his introduction to the book, "The word God fills these pages." And so does the word of God—not the word as found in the Bible or other sacred scriptures, but the word of God in the Newtonian sense, as it is written in the laws of nature.

Victor J. Stenger is professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Hawaii who has authored or co-authored over forty arti-cles in scientific journals. His latest book, Not By Design: The Origin of the Universe, was recently published by Prometheus.

on which the state may coerce the individual is to protect others; the individual's own good, whether physical or mental, is not sufficient warrant." Here, the euthanasia principles endorsed in Holland come under positive scrutiny. Kuhse states:

Since, as I have argued throughout this book, there is no intrinsic moral dif-ference between killing and letting die, I believe there will be times when it is

Led by Newton, Western science replaced the authority of revelation and scripture with the authority of observation, and the equa-tions that describe these observations. A familiar tee-shirt seen around the physics departments of college campuses shows the words "And God said . . ." followed by Maxwell's equations of electromagnetism and the words "and then there was light." The Judaic tradition of God as the universal law-giver is so deeply embedded in our cul-ture that it still colors scientific thinking, although the laws of physics have replaced the Ten Commandments and Newton has become a later Moses.

Newton realized that his purely attractive law of gravity would not lead to the static firmament of Genesis, which would collapse to a point unless that universe were infinite. But this was okay, since an infinite universe supported the notion of an infinite creator. However, Olber later showed that an infinite static universe did not make sense either, since it would make the night sky as bright as day from the combined contributions of an infinity of stars.

When Einstein developed his general theory of relativity, first published in 1916, he felt compelled by the still-prevailing belief in a firmament of stars to add a cosmological term to his equations to provide a repulsion to stabilize the universe. Such an arbitrary term was allowed, basically corresponding to the curvature of empty space. However, when the expansion of the universe was dis-covered by Edwin Hubble in 1924, the cos-mological term was shown to be unneces-sary—at least in the current universe. The expanding universe also solved Olber's paradox.

At the current rate of expansion, the universe must have originated fifteen or

better that a patient be killed rather than allowed to die—either because the process of dying involves much unnecessary suf-fering or because a competent patient asks her doctor for help in dying.

Not everyone will agree with Kuhse, but it is quite clear that all future discussions on euthanasia must take under consideration the positions she discusses in this book. This volume is highly recommended. •

twenty billion years ago with a "big bang." The discovery in 1964 of the cosmic micro-wave background radiation left over from the big bang strongly confirmed this view. Hawking's personal role in cosmology begins at about the time, with his demonstration, in collaboration with Roger Penrose, that general relativity, applied to the big bang, required that the universe started out as a black hole of infinite density and space-time curvature—what is called a singularity.

Physicists abhor infinities in their equa-tions; usually the appearance of an infinity means that they have done something wrong. In the early 1970s Hawking realized that one cannot neglect quantum mechanics inside a black hole singularity. In a chapter entitled "Black Holes Ain't So Black" he tells of his discovery that quantum effects will cause black holes to radiate energy, contradicting the conventional belief that gravity will prevent light from escaping a black hole. Further, the smaller the black hole, the shorter the time before all its energy is radi-ated away and the black hole ceases to exist. Black holes thus disappear from the universe before they collapse into a singularity. And if the universe were a tiny black hole at some early time, it would have exploded in a burst of radiation within a fraction of a second. As Hawking proudly points out, he was able to disprove what he had originally proved. There was no singularity at the beginning of time after all!

The absence of a singularity means we can probe with some confidence into the heart of the big bang without worrying about infinities; but the kicker is that we must do so with quantum gravity, which has not yet been fully formulated. Although no com-plete theory of quantum gravity yet exists, quantum field theories for the other funda-mental forces (strong and electro-weak) have now been successfully developed and have enabled physicists to probe as far back as 10-15 second after the big bang.

Hawking presents his own perspective on how these developments in particle physics helped to trigger the most important de-velopment in cosmology in recent years—

God and Stephen Hawking

Victor J. Stenger

Winter 1988/89 59

305 pages, trade paperback illustrated, index, bibliography

the inflationary universe. He somewhat in-flates his own role in this development, which was really relatively minor. More seriously, he gets some of the facts wrong regarding who did what. Alan Guth's original version of the inflationary universe had problems that were corrected by a modified model called the new inflationary universe, inde-pendently conceived by Andreas Albrecht and Paul Steinhardt in the United States and Andrei Linde in the Soviet Union. Hawking says that he mentioned Linde's ideas in a lecture attended by Steinhardt, implying that Steinhardt got the idea there. Fortunately, Steinhardt has a tape of the lecture that contradicts Hawking, who has agreed to correct the account in future editions of A Brief History of Time.

One of the problems with the original big-bang scenario was the need for the uni-verse to have started out with a high degree of order. Basically, the laws of nature had to have been in place at the beginning, as initial conditions. With the theory of the inflationary universe, we begin to under-stand how the particles and forces of nature could have been generated by a series of phase transitions from an original hot and

highly symmetric state of total chaos—maximum entropy. That is, there could have been no initial grand principle, the laws of physics evolving randomly and naturally in a Darwinian way. Hawking does not consider this possibility, being a cosmolog-ical creationist in his belief that the laws are eternal.

Hawking is obviously not keen on infla-tion. He states his admitted personal opinion that "the new inflationary model is now dead as a scientific theory, although a lot of peo-ple do not seem to have heard of its demise and are still writing papers as if it were viable." I am ashamed to admit that I hadn't heard of the demise of inflation either. Hawking does not tell us where to find the body.

Hawking also raises objections to the anthropic principle, which is used to explain how the universe happened to come into being with just the right natural laws and values of the various constants necessary for our kind of life. Basically the anthropic principle says that, if these laws and con-stants were otherwise, we would not be here to reflect upon them. Hawking accepts the weak form of the principle, which holds that

in a large or infinite universe the necessary conditions would occur at some place and time. That's the infinite-number-of-monkeys-at-an-infinite-number-of-computer-terminals model. However, he rejects the strong form of the anthropic principle in which an infinity of universes of random dimensions, physical constants, and natural laws exists and we, by our existence, select out the one that produced us. Hawking admits that the earth and solar system are exceptionally conducive to life, but says it is very hard to believe that "this vast construction exists simply for our own sake."

I cannot see his logic. We know that the earth has the very unlikely narrow range of conditions needed to make our kind of life possible, while the other known planets have vastly different environments. Similarly our solar system contains a single unusually stable star; we could never have evolved within a binary system or a system with a neutron star, red giant, or some other vari-able component. And the Milky Way galaxy, in which we reside, is well suited to our purposes, with a relatively quiet core. We would not survive in an active galaxy such

Ancient Myth and Modern Life by Gerald Larue

The Bible is a book of great influence, yet few know what modern scholarship says about the origins of its stories. Biblical Historian, Archeologist, and Humanist Laureate, Gerald Larue has brought the best of non-theistically oriented biblical scholarship and humanist commentary to one volume. Dr. Larue explores the way in which in-fluences from long-dead civilizations (Egypt, Sumer, Babylon, Per-sia) filtered through the Bible, continue to impact upon our modern culture's most urgent and pressing issues: abortion, women's rights, attitudes towards homosexuals, the right-to-die movement, and our continuing search for meaning and identity. A valuable book for thoughtful and concerned humanists.

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as a quasar. So if our planet, sun, and galaxy are especially suited for us, why not the whole universe? That is not to say that the vast construction exists for our sake—we exist because of the particular vast construc-tion that happened to evolve in our universe.

Hawking also objects to the infinity-of-universes hypothesis, applying the law of parsimony (Occam's razor). However, the law of parsimony does not limit the number of objects one is considering, but the number of hypotheses needed to describe those ob-jects. Otherwise, the law of parsimony would rule out matter, with its large number of atoms, or the universe itself, with its incredi-bly large number of stars and galaxies.

The weak form of the anthropic principle is insufficient to explain our existence in a finite universe unless there exists a grand principle that excludes all other possibilities. This is Hawking's view. He believes that such a principle can be found within a framework of quantum gravity and he gives us some idea how it might come about. The key is the idea of imaginary time. Everyone knows that Einstein introduced time as the fourth dimension. However, even in the simplest form of relativity, the special theory of rela-tivity, in which gravity is not considered, the time dimension must be treated differently from the three dimensions of space. For the time dimension to be exactly like the other three, it must be made an imaginary number; that is, it may contain a factor of the square root of -1. Hawking assures us that many problems with the theory of quantum gravity can be cured in this way, and the idea certainly has the appeal of symmetry. Further, it makes possible a description of the universe in which time, like space, has no boundaries. The surface of a sphere is

Baldwin, Louis. The Pope and the Mav-ericks. Prometheus Books, Buffalo, New York, 1988. 221 pages. $19.95 cloth. After the Vatican II there was a feeling among many Catholic theologians that long-held doctrines could now be questioned in a spirit of intellectual freedom and integrity. Such prominent thinkers as Hans Kung, Charles Curran, Edward Schillebeckx, and Ray-mond Hunthausen began to re-examine the Church's teachings on priestly celibacy, birth control, sexual morality, and papal infalli-bility. Louis Baldwin examines the writings of these men, along with that of the Libera-

an example of a two-dimensional finite boundless space. One of the spherical co-ordinates—say, the angular distance of a great circle from the north pole—could represent time in a two-dimensional space-time. The north pole could represent time-zero, with space contracted to a point. And most importantly, there is no negative time, no time before time-zero, and no boundary of time just as there is no boundary of space.

If no boundary of time exists, no boun-dary conditions need to have been set down at the beginning of time by a creator—or by chance. The universe simply IS. Hawking says it might turn out that only one universe is possible, because a single grand princi-ple—a self-consistent set of general relati-vistic quantum gravity equations—may admit only a single solution. But he cannot demonstrate that. More likely, when and if a theory of quantum gravity is found, an infinity of solutions will turn out to be possible and we will be back to using the strong anthropic principle—or a creator—to explain why our universe is what it is. Currently the law of parsimony excludes the hypothesis of a creator.

A Brief History of Time admirably suc-ceeds in helping to satisfy our continuing need to reflect on the most fundamental issues of the nature of the universe and our place in it. The fact that these issues are primarily scientific ones escapes most people, including many scientists. Thus a book of this type, written by a prominent scientist and reaching a large and varied audience, is a valuable contribution to public under-standing. It is compact and tightly written, and the average reader will find it a stimu-lating introduction to profound recent de- velopments in physics and cosmology. •

tion Theologians, and shows how they came into conflict with the Vatican hierarchy, espe-cially with the authoritarian viewpoint of John Paul II. In a lively section entitled "Other Popes, Other Mavericks," Baldwin shows how previous popes dealt in a similar manner with sincere but unorthodox scho-lars like Galileo, Alfred Loisy, Teilhard de Chardin and John Courtney Murray. A practicing Catholic, Baldwin examines how what were once heresies often become well-accepted dogmas. "Since so many of yesterday's mavericks have ultimately been vindicated," he writes, "there is at least hope for many of today's."

Katz, Jack. Seductions of Crime: Moral and Sensual Attractions in Doing Evil Basic Books, New York. 367 pages. $19.95 cloth. It is an ancient question: "Why do people commit crimes?" Jack Katz, an associate professor of sociology at UCLA, attempts to answer this question by examining the mindset of actual criminals. According to Katz, there is an "emotional logic" behind criminal acts. Far from being unemotional, criminals are often preoccupied with thoughts about the moral relevance of their deeds. They are seduced by attractions to what they consider to be primordial evil. Rather than merely responding to external situations, they act to sensual motivations based on their own sense of right and wrong. In order to understand the criminal mind, Katz asserts, one must try to understand the distinctive sensual dynamics that motivates it. Only by coming to grips with such criminal consciousness—by entering, in a sense, their moral thought processes—can we begin to provide any real deterrents. The use of actual case histories of violent crimes gives a disturbing element to this well-written, excellently researched work. It sheds a fascinating light on the problem of evil.

Huppert, Uri. Back To the Ghetto: Zionism in Retreat. Prometheus Books, Buffalo, NY, 1988. 200 pages. $19.95 cloth. Huppert, a Jerusalem lawyer who has acted as counsel for victims of religious coercion, details the history of the Zionist movement, which be-gan as a strictly secular movement in the nineteenth century. The aim of early Zionist leaders was to found a Jewish state dedicated to the principles of democracy and freedom, where ethinic Jews from throughout the world could come together and live in peace, free from religious persecution. So it is distressing that in recent years extremist groups like Meir Kahane's Kach Party and the non-Zionist Agudat Yisrael have gained such a foothold in Israel's political life. According to Huppert the growth of reli-gious intolerance and extremism in Israel cannot be blamed merely upon the radical Orthodox Jewish sects. In order to stay in power, pusillanimous politicians from the two major parties have catered to the Ortho-dox wishes. Huppert writes that "the dream of Israel's founders was of a free, democratic, and pluralistic nation. The dream of Israel's Orthodox, on the other hand, has been an authoritarian, ethnically 'pure' theocracy." As the recent Israel election shows, these extremist groups still hold the balance of power in the state. Huppert's book provides a timely examination of the dangers religious extremism presents to a democratic so- ciety. •

Books in Brief

Winter 1988/89 61