Author recalls ‘tiffs’ he had with Hawking

dubai — The late theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking didn’t just inspire the world with his brilliance and determination. His ability to communicate despite the odds has also given fellow authors a new perspective. Dr Leonard Mlodinow, a theoretical physicist who co-authored The Grand Design and A Briefer History of Time with Hawking, recalled the latter’s magnificent ability to do physics without a blackboard. “He thought very geometrically in pictures. It was great to observe someone thinking that way, and of course, his iron will and spirit to overcome his difficulties communicating and keep talking to me,” Mlodinow told Khaleej Times on the sidelines of the Sharjah International Book Fair (SIBF).

Hawking had contacted Mlodinow to help him rewrite his earlier

A Brief History of Time and make it more understandable to the average person. Mlodinow, who spent decades writing for the general public and relating mathematical principles to daily life, did not hesitate to take the offer.

“Whenever we would be debating or arguing, I would always be the one giving up but (Hawking) was never tired of the argument,” Mlodinow laughed. “When we were writing our second book The

Grand Design, we went back and forth until he said, ‘we talked about this enough, let’s just start writing’.”

It wasn’t only Hawking’s ability to write and think physics, but his mere ability to communicate has changed Mlodinow’s perspective. As Hawking could compose six words a minute through his sensor, Mlodinow had a chance to think before speaking. “It slowed down the pace of our conversation and made it very interesting, because I watched him compose sentences on the computer as he was writing them down so I had a preview of what he was going to say and think about my reply before he finished.” Mlodinow has written five New York

Times best-sellers, including The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives that addresses people’s inability to take randomness and chance into account in their daily lives.

Elastic thinking

His latest book Elastic: Flexible

Thinking in a Time of Change argues that logical and reasonable thinking is not the best way to go.

“In our modern days, we often need to break and invent the rules instead of following them. Elastic thinking is about creatively reacting to change, learning to see things in different ways and figure out how to respond to situations you haven’t seen before,” he said.

Though elastic thinking is the best method to adapt in the modern world, the concept is engrained in the human brain thousands of years ago. “There was a time when due to climactic change, human numbers dwindled and the ones who survived were the flexible and more adventurous ones who ventured a way and found new water and food sources.”

According to Mlodinow, all people have the ability to think flexible to a degree that varies from one to another. The most important way to nurture elastic thinking is avoiding the fear of failing or being wrong.

“New ideas bubble up in our unconscious mind, but most of them don’t make it to our conscious mind. The way you learn how to free yourself is through letting these ideas come into your mind.”

Through his book, Mlodinow shares way of relaxing the mind and becoming mindful in approaching a problem.

He emphasises becoming conscious that the way we think may not be always the right way. “If you think you know, you won’t be coming across something different. Fearing failure may get on the way of having creative and interesting ideas,” he said.

Whenever we would be debating or arguing, I would always be the one giving up but (Stephen Hawking) was never tired of the argument.”

Dr Leonard Mlodinow, a theoretical

physicist and author