Why Did The Universe Begin?
The Joy of Why
Steven Strogatz, Janna Levin and Quanta Magazine
4.9 • 577 Ratings
🗓️ 24 July 2025
⏱️ 52 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Most cosmologists agree that our universe had a beginning. But the finer details about the Big Bang remain a mystery. A history of everything would explain all, or so theoretical physicists hoped. In his final years, Stephen Hawking working with Thomas Hertog proposed a striking idea: The laws of physics were not precisely determined before the Big Bang; they evolved as the universe evolved.
In this episode of The Joy of Why, Hertog speaks with co-host Janna Levin about his work and partnership with Hawking. Hertog, now at KU Leuven in Belgium, explains why they rejected the popular multiverse theory and instead explored the idea that the universe’s properties are a result of cosmological natural selection. According to Hertog and Hawking, these properties must be viewed through the lens of human observers, who are also the consequence of natural selection.
So, how could the universe have created the conditions needed for life to emerge? Listen to the episode below to find out.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm Jana Levin and I'm Steve Strogetz and this is The Joy of Why, a podcast from Quantum |
| 0:11.2 | Magazine exploring some of the biggest unanswered questions in math and science today. |
| 0:18.0 | Hey Steve. Hi, Jana. We have a small little topic today, depending on how you look at it. |
| 0:24.1 | Little in that we're looking back when the universe was maybe very small. |
| 0:28.6 | Not so small in terms of profundity. |
| 0:31.2 | We're going to be talking about the origin of the universe. |
| 0:33.9 | Okay. Small topic, I see. |
| 0:36.3 | Yes, just that little topic. And it's interesting because |
| 0:39.8 | there's kind of a leaning in this conversation towards why. Why did the universe begin? Or why |
| 0:47.4 | is it the way it is? And that's actually, even though our title is the joy of why, not usually |
| 0:51.8 | how people approach the Big Bang by asking why. |
| 0:54.9 | I don't even understand the question yet. This sounds interesting. Well, I have this friend, |
| 1:00.0 | Thomas Hirtag, who I first met when he was this very young scientist just starting his studies |
| 1:05.9 | in Cambridge, and he began working with Stephen Hawking on the big questions. Can you imagine being thrown in? And they |
| 1:13.2 | worked together through a lot of different phases of Stephen's life and well-being. And they began asking |
| 1:20.0 | questions in a slightly different way, not just how did the universe begin, but was it tuned for life? |
| 1:30.1 | And how might these physical laws account for the emergence of life? Uh-huh. You're not going in an anthropic principle |
| 1:35.5 | direction, are you? Well, as I understand it, Stephen was horrified by the multiverse, by this |
| 1:41.9 | sort of anthropic approach. |
| 1:47.8 | And yet he couldn't deny that there was something there. |
| 1:52.3 | And so no, they're not exactly going to be anthropic, |
| 1:55.8 | which would kind of say, from this God's eye view, |
... |
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