Hawking and Spontaneous Creation

[Esran]

Okay, I've heard that in Stephen Hawking's new book, The Grand Design, he claims that the law gravity somehow created the universe from nothing. Can any of you give me a conceptual understanding of how this could occur?

[Kevin_Axion]

What I believe he means is the Universe's physical laws and our mathematical descriptions of them ultimately made the universe inevitable.

[Esran]

Okay, no duh. So, we've basically come back to an Aristotelian type First Cause?

[Kevin_Axion]

Does it really matter what one man believes, or two if you include Leonard Mlodinow? Their beliefs don't reflect the census of the scientific community.