Human Curiosity and Ingenuity Theme Analysis

The sense of humanity’s genius arises repeatedly in Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time—not only because of the author’s own exhaustive knowledge of the universe’s inner workings, but also because of the vast array of scientists, philosophers, and even lay people whose inspired “eureka” moments have forever changed the way people perceive the world. The book ranges over millennia, covering the history of humanity’s developing comprehension of scientific principles and revealing our inner desire to understand everything. For each tiny physical phenomenon that we have stumbled across, such as the rising and setting of the sun, we have asked, “how and why?” This curiosity, the book ultimately suggests, is in a way what makes us human.

Hawking characterizes humans as perpetually inquisitive, always seeking to overcome any intellectual barrier, or even finding new ones on which to focus their curiosity. Despite the distractions of day-to-day life, humans continue to find themselves absorbed by larger questions. For example, Hawking recalls, “one evening in November that year, shortly after the birth of my daughter, Lucy, I started to think about black holes as I was getting into bed.” He contrasts the everyday events of going to bed, family relationships, even the slow progress of time from a human perspective with the cosmological concept of black holes, which involves potential infinities of space and time. The human mind, he asserts, is naturally curious and restless.

This is in keeping with Hawking’s summation of the gradual development of classical scientific theory. He notes, “The [ancient] Greeks even had a third argument that the earth must be round, for why else does one first see the sails of a ship coming over the horizon, and only later see the hull?” Without the use of any scientific equipment or theories, the ancient Greeks could apply logic to answer questions arising from their observations, uncovering wider truths beyond their current viewpoint.

Another example of human curiosity Hawking provides is of two American scientists— Penzias and Wilson—testing a new microwave detector. Upon finding more background noise than they’d expected, the men conducted multiple rounds of further tests over the course of years. Hawking writes, “Penzias and Wilson had unwittingly stumbled across a remarkably accurate confirmation of Friedmann’s first assumption [that the universe looks the same in every direction].” Although this discovery was not their intention, these two physicists’ natural curiosity lead them to follow up on an unsolved matter, and ultimately to prove a prior scientific theory. Their application of their discovery, a work of curiosity, illustrates a form of ingenuity particular to humans.

Such is humankind’s inquisitiveness that we even question how we came to be an intelligent species able to ask such questions in the first place. The anthropic principle, is a philosophical consideration that, in Hawking’s words, states: “The intelligent beings in [certain hospitable] regions should therefore not be surprised if they observe that their locality in the universe satisfies the conditions that are necessary for their existence.” Basically, this means people shouldn’t be surprised that the current circumstances allow humans to exist, as we are already here. That this particular theory exists shows that humans’ curiosity knows no bounds—human curiosity even questions human curiosity’s existence.

As Hawking repeatedly states, there are many questions that remain unanswered, and all the theories about the nature of life and the universe so far are just that—theories. As such, human ingenuity will continue to seek out and identify new problems to solve. Humans will continue to ask questions until everything is known: “our goal is nothing less than a complete description of the universe we live in.” While Hawking’s words refer directly the scientists’ search for a unifying theory of everything, he asserts that this quest is a fundamental desire of the human condition.

This search is also just one step in a long quest for yet deeper understanding. “Even once all the scientific answers are found,” Hawking says, the next step will be to “take part in the discussion […] of why it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason—for then we would know the mind of God.” In other words, once humanity knows the how, we can move on to the why—and once we know that, and all questions are answered, we will transcend our current existence. Hawking shows that to be human is to ask how and why. Such curiosity breeds ingenuity, as humankind cannot rest until all the answers to their questions are found. Hawking goes as far as to suggest that once there are no more questions left to seek, we will somehow be more than human, although it will be an entirely human “triumph” to achieve such a feat.