The Big Ideas of Stephen Hawking Explained with Simple Animation

Full dis­clo­sure: On my 7th grade report card, a sym­pa­thet­ic sci­ence teacher tem­pered a shock­ing­ly low grade with a hand­writ­ten note to my par­ents. Some­thing to the effect of it being her opin­ion that my inter­est in the­ater would, ulti­mate­ly, serve me far bet­ter than any infor­ma­tion she was attempt­ing to ram through my skull.

Thank you, Miss Coop­er, for your com­pas­sion and excep­tion­al fore­sight.

There are times, though, when I do wish I was just a teen­sy bit bet­ter informed about cer­tain buzzy sci­en­tif­ic the­o­ries. Hank Green’s infor­ma­tion-packed sci­ence Crash Cours­es are help­ful to a degree, but he talks so damn fast, I often have the sen­sa­tion of stum­bling stu­pid­ly behind…

Which I am, but still…

Alok Jha, the author and ITV Sci­ence Cor­re­spon­dent who nar­rates the brief ani­mat­ed guide to some of Stephen Hawking’s big ideas, takes things at a more encour­ag­ing pace. His deliv­ery reminds me of Alain de Bot­ton’s, and that alone is enough to sooth me into believ­ing I stand a chance of some­what grasp­ing such quan­tum con­cepts as black holes, grav­i­ta­tion­al sin­gu­lar­i­ties, and Hawk­ing radi­a­tion.

As long as I don’t lose myself in non-sci­en­tif­ic flour­ish­es like the cat in a box anchor­ing some of Hawking’s equa­tions or a sweet homage to ET, I may be able to keep hold of this tiger’s tail. Or at least nod with some­thing resem­bling inter­est, the next time a sci­ence-obsessed teen is shar­ing his or her pas­sion…

The video above come from The Guardian’s Ani­ma­tions and Explain­ers video series. And it was cre­at­ed by Scriberia, a Lon­don ani­ma­tion stu­dio.

via Brain Pick­ings

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Stephen Hawking’s Uni­verse: A Visu­al­iza­tion of His Lec­tures with Stars & Sound

Watch A Brief His­to­ry of Time, Errol Mor­ris’ Film About the Life & Work of Stephen Hawk­ing

Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawk­ing & Arthur C. Clarke Dis­cuss God, the Uni­verse, and Every­thing Else

Free Online Physics Cours­es

Free Online Astron­o­my Cours­es

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, home­school­er, and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday