Stephen Hawking's Final Answer: No God Needed for Universe

What Happened Stephen Hawking’s posthumously published work presents his most direct statement on the existence of God, declaring that “the universe is the ultimate free lunch” - meaning it can exist without any external creator. The renowned Cambridge physicist, who died in 2018, compiled his thoughts on humanity’s biggest questions into what would become his final scientific statement on religion and existence. In the book, Hawking argues that the universe could spontaneously create itself from nothing due to the fundamental balance between positive energy (matter and radiation) and negative energy (the gravitational field stored in space itself).