Brief Answers to the Big Questions by Stephen Hawking review – God, space, AI, Brexit

The late Stephen Hawking did not believe in an afterlife, but he has one all the same. He has appeared as a co-author in two posthumous research papers since he died in March. One takes a fresh look at the problem of just how complex the universe far beyond our horizon could be; the other returns to the intractable but apparently not entirely insoluble problem of what happens to information once it falls into a black hole. This second paper is a response to a paradox that concerns only theoretical physicists but the first addresses the machinery of creation that seems to have needed no creator. Not surprisingly, he returns to both themes and many more in what his publishers call his final thoughts.