It is not very often you see the biggest astrophysicist of our time, Stephen Hawking, and a musician, Mark Oliver Everett (E.), interviewed by the BBC for the same article, an article published early September and concerning the ‘Theory of everything’, an unifying theory which would make sense of the infinitely small as well as the infinitely large. The Holy Grail for physicists.
Hawking has just published his book ‘The Grand Design’ in which he is explaining that ‘because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing’, and so that modern physics leaves no place for God in the creation of the Universe.
But he also says that the M-theory is the only candidate for a complete theory of the universe, the unifying one Einstein was looking for: ‘M-theory is the theory of everything. It explains how the universe was created out of nothing in the Big Bang, and how it behaves now. It governs everything we think and do.’
So what is the connection with the frontman of the Eels?
The M-theory echoes a relatively old one, the Multiverse theory, proposed by the physicist Hugh Everett III in the 50’s when he was working on quantum theory, and Hugh is Mark Oliver’s father. According to this theory, every time we make a decision, the universe splits into two universes which exist in parallel,… quite a mind-blowing idea.
In 2007, Mark made a documentary about his father ‘Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives’, a movie about how little he knew about him and his theory; that’s true, geniuses are not always the best father or husband. In the documentary Mark jokingly says he has never passed the 9th grade level in maths, and his father’s writing, full of extremely complex mathematical equations were complete Chinese for him.
In the recent interview from the BBC, E. said his father ‘was a 24-year-old genius that was brushed under the carpet, and that ruined his life’. He finds this late recognition quite bitter sweet, saying it was really very nice his father was getting the notice he deserved long ago, but it was 24 years too late.
However, how cool is it to be the son of a man who has contributed to a theory that could explain everything? I wonder whether E. has shaved his beard in a parallel universe, no idea, but in this universe, I’m gonna see him live on October 12th.