Leonardo da Vinci is generally recognised as one of the great figures of the Renaissance and one of the greatest ever polymaths.
As the world marks the 500th anniversary of his death, it’s important to look at some of the ways in which he showed that he was a thinker who was way ahead of his time, as well as being a painter, sculptor and engineer.

The Greatest Polymath

Leonardo knew of Vitruvius’s work – that with the navel as the centre, a perfect circle could be drawn around a body with outstretched arms and legs. He realised that if arm span and height are related, the person would fit perfectly inside a square. His Vitruvian Man took these observations and attempted to solve the problem of “squaring” a circle. It’s not, in fact, possible to do this exactly (squaring the circle is a metaphor for the impossible), but he managed to come very close.

The Vitruvius Man

Leonardo’s Last Supper is a prime example of the use of the mathematics of perspective. The architecture of the building around Jesus and the 12 apostles, as well as lines on the floor beneath the table, create a “vanishing point”, providing a subconscious focal point for the painting.

The Last Supper

Leonardo da Vinci pioneered the study of physiognomy by introducing the concepts of “moti mentali” contained in the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Codex-Urbinas-Latinus-1270">Codex Urbinae</a>, written between 1452 and 1519 and printed by Raffaelo du Fresne as Trattato della Pittura in 1651. Moti mentali can be translated as the representation of transient, dynamic mental states, thoughts and emotions. For da Vinci, the goal of portraitists should be representing the inner thoughts of their sitters, not just the external appearance.Leonardo used this method around the mouth area in some of his portraits (like Mona Lisa and Bella Principessa).

Visual Illusions: The Smile Of Mona Lisa

Although da Vinci is best known for his artistic works, he considered himself more of a scientist than an artist. Mathematics – in particular, perspective, symmetry, proportions and geometry – had a significant influence over his drawings and paintings, and he was most certainly ahead of his time in making use of it.Da Vinci used the mathematical principles of linear perspective – parallel lines, the horizon line, and a vanishing point – to create the illusion of depth on a flat surface.

A Mathematical Genius

Leonardo da Vinci is renowned for his inventions, works of art, studies of architecture and anatomical drawings.
The documents that survive show us his ideas for a wide range of devices, such as gliders, helicopters, parachutes, diving suits, cranes, gearboxes and many types of weapons of war.
He combined an imagination ahead of his time, an understanding of the emerging principles of science and engineering, and his superlative draftsmanship to devise new uses for levers, gears, pulleys, bearings and springs.

A Mechanical Genius

Ornithopters, human-powered flying machines which mimicked bird flight, were a fascination for him – and he drew many beautiful and innovative designs. However, bird flight was not fully understood at this time and he was unaware that a human being could never generate the required power to operate such devices.

A Passion For Flying Machines

Leonardo da Vinci described water as “the vehicle of nature” (vetturale di natura), water being to the world what blood is to our bodies. From his earliest landscape drawings of a river cascading over rocks (1473), to the famous Mona Lisa (1503) and to his final deluge sketches (1517-18), a lot of Leonardo’s paintings featured water. As a polymath, he was able to combine his knowledge and ability in art, design, science, philosophy and engineering to design projects, ideas and instruments to <a href="http://hydrologie.org/bluebooks/SP009.pdf">test his hypotheses</a>.

Water: The Vehicle Of Nature

In many of Leonardo’s portraits, it is almost impossible to say when one colour ends and another starts – and this is evident in some crucial parts of his paintings, such as the mouths of his sitters.For example, the Laboratoire du Centre de Recherche et de Restauration des Musées de France, in collaboration with the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/From-the-news-wires/2010/0716/Mona-Lisa-examination-reveals-layers-of-paint-for-dreamy-quality">reported that</a> Leonardo used up to 30 layers of varnish to achieve the subtle shading around the mouth of the La Bella Principessa (a portrait attributed to Leonardo <a href="https://books.google.it/books?hl=en&lr=&id=i2osO3TsTXQC&oi=fnd&pg=PP2&ots=lVCXPANimQ&sig=XoylZ5Qo8AhjVksY4g6T3RP6Z1Y&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false">by Martin Kemp</a> as recently as 2011).

Multilayered Portraits

Engineer, artist, mathematician, thinker: Leonardo da Vinci was all these and more.

history

History

artsandculture

Society, Arts & Culture

Four ways in which Leonardo da Vinci was ahead of his time

The Iranian fundamentalist regime, for example, is willing to pay for sexual reassignment surgery because it sees the existence of gay men and lesbians as the greater threat to the patriarchal contract. Everyone has the right to live as they wish in security and dignity and without fear of discrimination and stigma, but this cannot be achieved by hitching feminism or indeed other social justice movements to regressive ideological projects.

But the answer to the question “what is a woman?” is—like the answer to “what is a ewe?”—an almost mundane description of age, sex and species, albeit one with human significance in life and law, sport and data, and single-sex spaces and services. Just as a “ewe” is an adult female sheep, a “woman” is an adult female human.

Maybe asking “what is a woman” is an impossible question because there are any number of ways of being a woman.Perhaps all I can say is what makes someone a woman is simply a piece of unique, amorphous self-identity floating around in one’s brain, saying: “you are a woman.” Or, to put it more succinctly, paraphrasing an established principle from the trans rights movement: womanhood is what’s inside your head, between your ears.

These all strike me as different ways of responding to the coerciveness of our current gender order. While the ones that involve changing one’s gender or transforming one’s body throw up sometimes taxing problems regarding access to women-only services or how much prior counselling is appropriate before embarking on possibly irreversible change, I cannot see any one of them as more legitimate than any other. The body matters, shaping how others see us and how we see ourselves. Most of us will change something about our bodies in the process of changing ourselves—but the body is not destiny.

I believe that what defines a woman is her biological sex. The binary biological categories of male and female are a material reality even if there are variations of sexual development in-between. Throughout the world and throughout history, women have been and are subject to systematic subjugation on the basis of their sex; a subjugation that is legitimised through patriarchal power embedded in the institutions of the state, community and family. In many cultures, a woman’s destiny is mapped out the day she is born and, in some cases, while still in the womb.

Pragna Patel, former director of Southall Black Sisters

Women need single-sex spaces to make sense of their shared biological and social experiences and to stay safe from the harms that they face.To those who say that this view can make feminism a natural ally of the religious right, I say that fighting for sex-based rights must lead us into necessary contestations with the religious or far right. Today, these forces represent one of the greatest threats to women and girls as well as to people who are same-sex attracted, other sexual minorities and those deemed to be non-conforming.

We know it means something different for Caitlyn Jenner, Kimberlé Crenshaw, JK Rowling, Cara Delevingne, James Charles, Beyoncé, Pope Francis, Lia Thomas, the Queen, Malala Yousafzai, an incel, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Miriam Margolyes, or a man who buys a “non-bio woman” (an AI-enhanced sex doll which may cost up to $25,000 depending on which distinguishing features you choose).New senses of the word “ have appeared over time: woman as wife or a form of address (13th cent.), woman as a sexual partner or in contrast to a “lady” (15th cent.), woman as the embodiment of femininity (17th cent).

Nor are they to be confused with men who are not genuinely trans but who pretend to live as women in order to gain access to women’s spaces for ulterior reasons. I do not know how common this is and I understand how deeply concerned some women, especially those who have suffered abuse at the hands of men, are about that risk. It is, quite simply, bad behaviour and should not be tolerated. The difficulty lies in knowing which is which.

Like other animals that give birth to live young, female humans also provide their developing baby a safe space in which to grow during gestation.To describe as “female” a ewe that (just like a woman) has ovaries, a uterus and a vagina, who (just like a woman) produces eggs and gives birth does not attract handwringing analysis of what “ewe” means and whether some rams might be counted as one. It is a peculiarly human and almost religious practice to distinguish our own species from the rest of the animal kingdom, in this case with regards to sex.

I am a lawyer, and in law there are two sorts of woman: a person who was born a woman and has not transitioned to become a man under the Gender Recognition Act 2004; and a person who was born a man and has transitioned to become a woman under the same Act. But in practice there are people who were born either a woman or a man and experience gender dysphoria but have not yet completed the legal transition to the other gender. The current law requires them to live in the other gender for two years before their transition can be recognised in law.

Brenda Hale, former president of the Supreme Court

New spellings of woman have also emerged, some of them naturally occurring (Old English wifmann, Middle English wuman); others, especially in the 1970s, constructed to reflect a political stance (wimmin, womyn, womxn).Our definition of woman is not fixed. Language reflects culture, and culture changes over time. What is derogatory and offensive now won’t be to future generations. Some artists and activists try to force that change.

There are other people who are driven to live in the other gender, even if they do not intend to complete a legal transition. For practical purposes, people who live as women in this way are women.Genuinely trans people are among the most vulnerable and marginalised of groups in our society and deserve our understanding and support. They are not to be confused with men who like dressing up as women, any more than people who live as men are to be confused with women who like dressing up as men.

Much of society has deemed that a human becomes an “adult” during late adolescence.So it is “female” that is the source of controversy. Yet in biology and medicine, in the hundreds of thousands of textbook references and papers, it is no more controversial than “human” or “adult.” Almost all animals reproduce sexually, via the fertilisation of an egg by a sperm, and 95 per cent of animal species—including all mammals and birds—are divided into two reproductive classes of individual who, in the absence of illness, injury or disease, produce either eggs (females) or sperm (males).

A woman is someone who identifies as an adult female human being. The word is in flux so no wonder politicians, who want to be all things to all people, find it so tricky to define. Usually language evolves gradually. But “woman” is changing fast, helped by social media, meaning we can watch its morphing definitions in real time.

Sarah Ogilvie, linguist, University of Oxford

First, get the science right. Most born women have XX chromosomes, men XY. Intersex individuals can have other combinations. In the US, it is estimated that 1.4m people—or around 0.6 per cent of the population—want to change in social role from male to female or from female to male, though all the political excitement is about males to females. A little girl who says “I’m a boy” from age three onwards, refusing to wear dresses, is probably going to be happier as a boy. If he changes his mind, he can transition back.

Deirdre McCloskey, professor of economics, history, English and communication at the University of Illinois

To those who argue that sex is not a biological but a cultural and social construct, I would say that this cannot wholly explain why women and girls are the targets of many forms of harm throughout their lives: female foeticide (sex-selective abortion), female infanticide, FGM and reproductive coercion are just some of the harms that are perpetrated against women and girls on the basis of their biological sex. Feminists across the world have challenged these and many other abuses in the struggle for the right to female autonomy, including bodily autonomy.

Is being a woman a matter of biology, a product of an inner identity—or something in-between? A range of women, including a former Supreme Court judge, a biologist, an anthropologist, a linguist and a feminist campaigner give us their verdicts.

What is a woman?

What is a woman? What makes someone a woman? I should know. Shouldn’t I? I’m a cisgender, straight woman.My birth certificate says “female.” Is that what makes me a woman? No, it’s not that simple. A six-letter word—female—on a birth certificate or any other official document does not always determine womanhood.My reproductive organs played a large part in gifting me two children, and my breasts serviced them for months on end. But reproductive organs, menstruation, pregnancy, menopause, breasts and breast-feeding don’t always define womanhood or make one a woman.

Dawn Starin, anthropologist

For the most part, social and political institutions divide their populations into females and males. I easily fall into the female category in this gender binary system. Yet this system is not universal. There are many other ways we humans have organised genders; both in the past and present, three or more genders have been seen as a very natural way of being and being identified. Historically, people have often transcended binary ideas of gender. In India, the history of the Hijras, a third gender community, stretches back to ancient times.

Some terms for woman have been positive and heroic (virago, Zamazim, Amazon); ­others decidedly pejorative (strumpet, wench, malkin); some have died out (unchaghe, mot, kittock); others die hard (hussy, minx, skirt).Slang terms for a woman outnumber slang terms for anything else, more even than crime, alcohol, sex or race, and certainly men. Green’s Dictionary of Slang has 10,000 terms for a woman and thousands more referring to female body parts (1,500 words alone for vagina but only 27 for ­clitoris—clearly a woman’s pleasure is not a priority in slang).

People raise objections. The bathroom issue. Come, come, I go to the loo to pee. What do you do? The sports debate. ­Alright, let’s be reasonable and ­polite, and not have XY people with massive male muscles compete against XX people. I don’t know: maybe a test of muscle mass? Yet some of the XX people have a lot of that.Whether Ukraine is essentially Russian is a big issue. Whether people are essentially free adults is still bigger. Whether I am essentially a woman is not.

Since pre-Hispanic times in southern Mexico, there have been three ­recognised genders: muxes, females and males. Today, muxes are accepted and celebrated within their indigenous Zapotec community.Official documents, officialdom, sexual and reproductive organs, biology, external rules, laws, society and body parts (except for the one big one, the brain) cannot always automatically define one’s personal gender. Gender and therefore womanhood are probably determined by the self. And, just as there are no two identical women, there are no two usable identical definitions of womanhood.

Babies are identified as male or female on the basis of their genitals—though in a small number of cases the observations are inconclusive—and are then set off on the long process of acculturation into their assigned categories, learning the appropriate ways of holding their bodies, engaging in the world and envisaging their futures. Some of us accept the label, but resist the baggage attached to it, and try to practise a different version of what it is to be a woman.

It is uncontroversial to name an adult female sheep a “ewe” or to know that our scrambled eggs come from “hens.” Humans have long used nouns that denote individual animals by their species and sex (and often stage of maturity), including in relation to our own species: a “woman” is an adult female ­human.The least controversial of this triplet is “human.” Nobody disputes that the word “woman” applies uniquely to humans. And (almost) equally uncontroversially, “adult” denotes an individual who is fully developed and no longer dependent on others.

Emma Hilton, developmental biologist, University of Manchester

In The Vagina Monologues, Eve Ensler repeats the word cunt over and over until it (nearly) loses its shock value. The designer Suzi Warren makes t-shirts reclaiming negative words for woman: Sandi Toksvig chose crone, Mary Beard chose witch, I chose blue-stocking. If only it were that easy.

In most cases, the question that troubles people is not what is a woman, but what is a “real” woman. "Real” women are defined very differently in different periods and places. It is one of the paradoxes of gender that we are so often told it is in our nature to be women, as if biology is indeed destiny, and yet an enormous amount of effort is put into getting us to conform to whatever is the current paradigm.Others find the labels so incompatible with their sense of themselves that they choose to live in a different gender, undergo surgical or hormonal interventions, or redefine themselves.

Anne Phillips, professor of political theory, London School of Economics

Practically no one I know has regretted the decision. “Ecstatic” would be a better description of their state of mind. On the other hand, prevent it and you get deeply unhappy people.Second, get the politics right. Take the high road. In a free society, people get to make harmless choices. We are not classified permanently at birth as barristers or ploughmen, barmaids or accountants. The freedom of which most of us approve requires equality of permission. No castes, please: we’re British.

Women are made to be loved not to be undestood

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

leadershipandmanagement

Leadership & Management

What is a Woman?

Edvard Munch’s timeless representation of human terror, created at the birth of modernism in Europe, makes its long-awaited return tomorrow at the opening of Norway’s new £500 million National Museum, after more than three years in storage. This is the oldest of several Screams, painted in 1893. Norway’s most revered painter reworked it many times (one is in the nearby Munch Museum; another sold at auction for nearly $120 million in 2012 –(then a record) and in numerous lithographs. In earlier versions, the figure is a well-dressed man gazing to sea. But this is The Scream you probably know.

Norway’s Most Revered Painter 

As the most celebrated version of the masterpiece goes on display, we examine its many meanings.We all know The Scream – or we think we do. Boiling sea beneath blood-red sky. A figure – genderless, featureless, alone on a precipice – confronts us with an anguished face as it covers its ears with formless hands.It is a skull, or perhaps a foetus. Its body is contorted, as if without bone and muscle, and it appears to be undulating into the sky. Two figures walk away, oblivious as the world dissolves into chaos.

The Scream

Hansen points out that The Scream is not screaming; that was not Munch’s intention. He left several poems, notes and diary entries in which he described the circumstances behind the image, including this diary entry written in 1892: “I was walking along the road with two friends – then the sun went (I went) down. Suddenly the sky turned blood-red and I felt a breath of melancholy and an exhausting pain under my heart – I paused, leaning against a fence, tired to death. Above the blue-black fjord and city there was blood in tongues of fire.

The Sream Is Not Screaming

In 1889, he escaped to Paris, where he encountered the post-impressionists: Van Gogh’s expressive and emotional brushwork; Gaugin’s heavy, simplified outlines and contours. He took them, and injected his own sense of northern European melancholy, developing a new style of painting that reflected interior life rather than the physical world.Four years later, in 1893, he painted The Scream that’s in Oslo’s National Museum, while living in Berlin, where an exhibition of his work a year earlier had caused a great commotion and established him as a pioneering artist.

A Northern Melancholy

It is the one on which Munch dripped candle wax, possibly left out in the garden and on which he scribbled: “Could only have been painted by a madman.” It was stolen then returned in a gallery raid in 1994, and is reproduced on endless Munch merchandise, from women’s dresses to babies’ bibs to desktop inflatables – and, of course, emojis.The Scream has seeped into pop culture and sits deep in our collective psyche. Even if you have never heard of Munch or seen the artwork in the flesh, you will know and understand its tortured figure.

A Tortured Figure

We use it ironically, as visual shorthand for exasperation, perhaps anxiety. Why does it resonate so deeply? Thierry Ford, a conservator at the National Museum, says we project whatever we want on to Munch’s figure. “There is no right or wrong way to interpret it – it’s so versatile.”And, according to curator Vibeke Waallann Hansen: “It’s so radical and communicative – everyone of any culture, even a child, can understand it, even if people interpret it differently.”

Versatile

They include a piece of beach detritus – a wooden disc with three holes, some kind of winding mechanism.Moore cast it in bronze in the mid-20th century. It looks like The Scream. He must have known.And I see it in the mask worn by the villain in Scream, Wes Craven’s 1990s classic shlock-horror film. I realise why Munch’s masterpiece resonates.It is just an iteration. The Scream has always existed, and it always will.-----Why Munch’s The Scream isn’t actually screaming. As the most celebrated version of the masterpiece goes on display, we examine its many meanings Helen Barrett, 10 June 2022 •

Munch's Masterpiece Resonates

“People still respect and know its culture, they know the work,” she says. But now, like other emojis, it has a new role helping humans to communicate. “The Scream has become social glue,” she says.In any case, we are using it less. According to Unicode, the official body in charge of emojis, the screaming face is the 55th most-used icon, and fell in global rankings between 2019 and 2021. Freedman says others are taking its place: the skull is increasingly used to convey dying of shock or laughter.

A Social Glue

The circumstances in which Munch worked on it give more clues to its resonance. He was nearly 30, and he knew The Scream was special. His life before had been ravaged by madness, sickness and death. His mother and sister died of tuberculosis; his father was dogged by depression. Another sister became schizophrenic. Munch turned to drawing to keep himself occupied, but his pious father gave him no support and considered an artist’s profession unholy.

The Scream Is Special

My friends went on and I stood there trembling with anxiety – and felt that a great, infinite scream went through nature.”The scream is emitted by an outside force; the figure covers his ears because he cannot bear the intensity. Hansen suggests a second interpretation: “The scream is the world surrounding you. You are afraid that you cannot cope with social relations, with love. Munch first showed it in a series called the Paintings of Love – and it was about love and desire.”

An Outside Force

Across Oslo harbour, Munch superfan <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness/body/thanks-tracey-emin-people-finally-talking-disease-killed-mother/">Tracey Emin</a> is in town to unveil her bronze sculpture, The Mother, outside the Munch Museum. Later, she talks about her fascination with The Scream. “It’s like some kind of sperm-like, unborn presence that is just within the ether,” she says. “It’s not a ghost, not a spirit. It’s something half there, and half in another world.”She points out its timelessness: “I went to Egypt, to the Valley of the Kings, where there’s a foetus that would have become a king. And I said, ‘Oh my God, it’s just like The Scream!’”

Some Kind of Sperm-Like

Nevertheless, Emin fears The Scream has lost some of its power. “I went to the museum shop and there were nail files with The Scream, so when you file your nails it goes, ‘Wheeee!’ I thought, ‘That’s so bad. What would Munch have said?’”I think about Emin’s encounter with a Scream-like mummified foetus, and she’s right. Once you start looking, you see The Scream everywhere. I see it in 5,000-year-old carved mace heads at the British Museum, screaming silently for millennia, and again at the Hauser & Wirth gallery in Somerset, where a selection of Henry Moore’s found objects is on show.

The Scream Everywhere

From foetuses to emojis. The “Face Screaming in Fear” was added to platforms in 2010 – inspired by both Munch’s image and characters in Japanese anime – and has been used in millions of digital messages ever since, whether to add feeling to a photograph of a positive lateral flow test, or to punctuate a picture of a toddler’s chocolate-smeared face. It’s a joke, to convey despair at mundane inconveniences.Has this new digital life reduced Munch’s existential cry to glibness? Alisa Freedman, professor of cultural studies at the University of Oregon, doesn’t think so.

From Foetuses to Emojis

Munch’s masterpiece is different from reproductions – the brushstrokes are more dynamic, the colours of its tempera and pastel are more luminous than on the umbrellas and tote bags in the gift shop. The figure’s expression seems to be in shock, not anxious; its eyes are blank crosses that lock into my gaze. Something unseen appears to be clutching its shoulder; the perspective is dizzying. I notice gouges on the surface. It is as if The Scream is forever shifting, familiar yet unknowable. I must be peering too closely because a guard rushes over to ask me to stand back.

Forever Shifting

Unlike <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-news/9126366/Mona-Lisa-copy-may-have-been-painted-by-Leonardo-da-Vincis-lover-art-historians-suggest.html">Mona Lisa</a>, which last month in Paris had cake thrown at its protective glass in a bizarre climate protest, the returning Scream is not alone in a room. It is hung with other Munch pieces (intentional on the part of the curators: the artist conceived it as part of a series depicting stages of love). There are no ropes, glass sheets or electronic alarms. Only a few visitors can enter at one time. Hansen describes it as “a non-selfie experience”.

A Non-Selfie Experience

As the most celebrated version of the masterpiece goes on display, we examine its many meanings

health

Health

movies

Movies & Shows

problemsolving

Problem Solving

Why Munch’s The Scream isn’t actually screaming

“When we see the Earth from space, we see ourselves as a whole. We see the unity, and not the divisions. It is such a simple image with a compelling message; one planet, one human race.”

If time travel is possible, where are the tourists from the future?

THE NO.1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 'A beautiful little book by a brilliant mind' DAILY TELEGRAPH 'Effortlessly instructive, absorbing, up to the minute and - where it matters - witty' GUARDIAN The world-famous cosmologist and #1 bestselling author of A Brief History of Time leaves us with his final thoughts on the universe's biggest questions in this brilliant posthumous work. Is there a God? How did it all begin? Can we predict the future? What is inside a black hole? Is there other intelligent life in the universe? Will artificial intelligence outsmart us? How do we shape the future? Will we survive on Earth? Should we colonise space? Is time travel possible? Throughout his extraordinary career, Stephen Hawking expanded our understanding of the universe and unravelled some of its greatest mysteries. But even as his theoretical work on black holes, imaginary time and multiple histories took his mind to the furthest reaches of space, Hawking always believed that science could also be used to fix the problems on our planet. And now, as we face potentially catastrophic changes here on Earth - from climate change to dwindling natural resources to the threat of artificial super-intelligence - Stephen Hawking turns his attention to the most urgent issues for humankind. Wide-ranging, intellectually stimulating, passionately argued, and infused with his characteristic humour, Brief Answers to the Big Questions, the final book from one of the greatest minds in history, is a personal view on the challenges we face as a human race, and where we, as a planet, are heading next. A percentage of all royalties will go to charity.

education

Learning & Education

books

Books

scienceandnature

Science & Nature

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The world-famous cosmologist and author of A Brief History of Time leaves us with his final thoughts on the biggest questions facing humankind. “Hawking’s parting gift to humanity . . . a book every thinking person worried about humanity’s future should read.”—NPR NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Forbes • The Guardian • Wired Stephen Hawking was the most renowned scientist since Einstein, known both for his groundbreaking work in physics and cosmology and for his mischievous sense of humor. He educated millions of readers about the origins of the universe and the nature of black holes, and inspired millions more by defying a terrifying early prognosis of ALS, which originally gave him only two years to live. In later life he could communicate only by using a few facial muscles, but he continued to advance his field and serve as a revered voice on social and humanitarian issues. Hawking not only unraveled some of the universe’s greatest mysteries but also believed science plays a critical role in fixing problems here on Earth. Now, as we face immense challenges on our planet—including climate change, the threat of nuclear war, and the development of artificial intelligence—he turns his attention to the most urgent issues facing us. Will humanity survive? Should we colonize space? Does God exist? ​​These are just a few of the questions Hawking addresses in this wide-ranging, passionately argued final book from one of the greatest minds in history. Featuring a foreword by Eddie Redmayne, who won an Oscar playing Stephen Hawking, an introduction by Nobel Laureate Kip Thorne, and an afterword from Hawking’s daughter, Lucy, Brief Answers to the Big Questions is a brilliant last message to the world. Praise for Brief Answers to the Big Questions “[Hawking is] a symbol of the soaring power of the human mind.”—The Washington Post “Hawking’s final message to readers . . . is a hopeful one.”—CNN “Brisk, lucid peeks into the future of science and of humanity.”—The Wall Street Journal “Hawking pulls no punches on subjects like machines taking over, the biggest threat to Earth, and the possibilities of intelligent life in space.”—Quartz “Effortlessly instructive, absorbing, up to the minute and—where it matters—witty.”—The Guardian “This beautiful little book is a fitting last twinkle from a new star in the firmament above.”—The Telegraph

Stephen Hawking is an accomplished writer whose work has resonated with readers around the world. Stephen Hawking has published several books that explore a range of topics, from fiction to nonfiction, and has received critical acclaim for the ability to weave compelling narratives. Stephen Hawking's writing style is known for its depth and authenticity, and has earned quite a loyal following of readers.

Stephen Hawking

Brief Answers to the Big Questions

Another sub-self is the grim executive, which Kaplan calls “the stone-faced men and women of big business. Anyone feeling the burden of being held responsible for profit and loss.” In this case, you can call out the sub-self by saying, “It’s a badge of honor to look ten years older than you are. Don’t forget your annual visit to the cardiologist.”Other sub-selves include being a people pleaser, robot, doormat, critic, and ego maniac.

Sub-Self: The Grim Executive

Kaplan studied the work of Frank Farrelly, an innovative therapist who founded Provocative Therapy in the 1960s. Provocative Therapy uses humor and reverse psychology to provoke people to change. With the person’s explicit permission, you repeat what you hear their “sub-selves” saying and you do it with humor, warmth, and affection.

Provocative Therapy

If you find it hard to laugh at yourself, I would be happy to do it for you.

Laugh at yourself by reaffirming the workaholic’s devotion to work. For example, you can tell yourself, “You should definitely spend all your time focusing on making more money and acquiring more businesses or investing in the market. Your children will be judged by their clothes and vacations. They don’t need you; they need your money.”

Self-Subversion How-to

According to the Mayo Clinic, laughing has short- and long-term effects on our health. As we bring in more oxygen, it stimulates our heart, lungs, and muscles. Laughing increases the endorphins that are released by our brain, and it cools down our stress response. Over a longer period of time, laughter can improve our immune system, relieve pain, and increase personal satisfaction.

Laughter Can Be Good Medicine

“We all have sub-selves, or sub-personalities, such as our inner child,” says Kaplan. “That’s a nice use of a sub-self. But we also have sub-selves that dominate us. They’re loud, grab the microphone, and dominate the whole personality.”For example, you may relate to a sub-self of the workaholic. You could justify that you need to work 15 hours a day because you’re paying for your children’s education, a new house, or a vacation home.

Our Sub-Selves

If you would not be laughed at, be the first to laugh at yourself.

“When you can laugh at that side—especially when it’s a bit over the top—then you can laugh at that part of you that’s sabotaging yourself,” says Kaplan. “That moment of laughter provides a window of opportunity to recognize what’s holding you back and prescribe your own solution. And laughter and the warmth of it is like a medicine that allows you to deal with something that’s often quite painful.”

Laughter And The Warmth Of It

Provocative Therapy is a system of psychotherapy in which the therapist plays the devil’s advocate, siding with the negative half of the client’s ambivalence toward his life’s goals, his relationships, work and the structures within which he lives. The provocative therapist also plays the Satanic role by facetiously agreeing with the doom and gloom feelings and expectations of the client, and “tempting” him to continue his “sinning,” his self-defeating attitudes and behavioral patterns.

Whose Side Are You On?

In his book, Kaplan identifies more than 100 sub-selves that could be holding you back. For example, you may be a procrastinator. In this case, you can talk to yourself by saying, “Never underestimate the power of tomorrow!” “Always make magnanimous resolutions on your finest night, New Year’s Eve.” And “Meditate on the many horrible consequences of most impulsive decisions and actions.”

Sub-Self: The Procrastinator

While it’s easy to laugh at something funny, the ability to laugh at yourself can help you address the challenges that could be holding you back in your career and life, says Dr. Brian Kaplan, author of Almost Happy: Pushing Your Buttons with Reverse Psychology.“To laugh at one’s self is an excellent thing,” he says. “Humor can be a very powerful way of helping people, proving that helping doesn’t have to be a solemn experience.”

Helping Doesn’t Have To Be Solemn

“Mark Twain once said, ‘Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand,'” says Kaplan. “Once you’re laughing at the sub self, you’re acutely aware of it. Normally, you don’t think of the trait as a sub-self. When it takes you over, you think ‘I’m angry’ or ‘I’m under stress,’ because the sub-self has taken your whole personality there. When you can identify it as a part of you and not your entire being, you can quiet it down.”

A Part, Not The Whole

We probably all know what it’s like when others push our buttons and drive us crazy. What if we pushed our own buttons and drove ourselves happy? 

The ability to laugh at yourself can help you address the challenges that could be holding you back in your career and life, says Dr. Brian Kaplan.


Four ways in which Leonardo da Vinci was ahead of his time

What is a Woman?

Why Munch’s The Scream isn’t actually screaming

It's time to
Read like a Pro.

Brief Answers to the Big Questions

CURATED BY

Four ways in which Leonardo da Vinci was ahead of his time

What is a Woman?

Why Munch’s The Scream isn’t actually screaming

It's time to Read like a Pro.

Brief Answers to the Big Questions

CURATED BY

It's time to
Read like a Pro.