Who's going to argue with the smartest guy around? - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

peragro · #1 06-14-2006, 02:05 AM

Hawking Says Space Colonies Needed
Jun 13 8:49 PM US/Eastern

By SYLVIA HUI
Associated Press Writer

HONG KONG

The survival of the human race depends on its ability to find new homes elsewhere in the universe because there's an increasing risk that a disaster will destroy Earth, world-renowned physicist Stephen Hawking said Tuesday.

Humans could have a permanent base on the moon in 20 years and a colony on Mars in the next 40 years, the British scientist told a news conference.

"We won't find anywhere as nice as Earth unless we go to another star system," added Hawking, who came to Hong Kong to a rock star's welcome Monday. Tickets for his lecture Wednesday were sold out.

Hawking said that if humans can avoid killing themselves in the next 100 years, they should have space settlements that can continue without support from Earth.

"It is important for the human race to spread out into space for the survival of the species," Hawking said. "Life on Earth is at the ever- increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster, such as sudden global warming, nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus or other dangers we have not yet thought of."

The 64-year-old scientist _ author of the global best-seller "A Brief History of Time" _ uses a wheelchair and communicates with the help of a computer because he suffers from a neurological disorder called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS.

One of the best-known theoretical physicists of his generation, Hawking has done groundbreaking research on black holes and the origins of the universe, proposing that space and time have no beginning and no end.

However, Alan Guth, a physics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said Hawking's latest observations were something of a departure from his usual research and more applicable to survival over the long-term.

"It is a new area for him to look at," Guth said. "If he's talking about the next 100 years and beyond, it does make sense to think about space as the ultimate lifeboat."

But, he added, "I don't see the likely possibility within the next 50 years of science technology making it easier to survive on Mars and on the moon than it would be to survive on earth."

"I would still think that an underground base, for example in Antarctica, would be easier to build than building on the moon," Guth said.

Joshua Winn, an astrophysicist at MIT, agreed. "The prospect of colonizing other planets is very far off, you must realize," he said.

Hawking's "work has been highly theoretical physics, not in astrophysics or global politics or anything like that," Winn added. "He is certainly stepping outside his research domain."

Hawking's comments Tuesday were reminiscent of the work of American astrophysicist Carl Sagan, who was a believer in the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence.

Sagan, a Cornell University professor and NASA-decorated scientist who died in 1996, noted that organic molecules, the kind that life on Earth is dependent on, appear to be almost everywhere in the solar system.

Sagan played a leading role in the U.S. space program, helping design robotic missions and contributing to the Mariner, Viking, Voyager and Galileo expeditions.

But his work also focused on the search for habitable worlds and intelligent life beyond the solar system, as well as theories about life's origins, ideas popularized in his best-selling 1985 novel, "Contact," which was made into a film starring Jodie Foster.

At Tuesday's news conference, Hawking said he too was venturing into the world of fiction. He plans to team up with his daughter, 35-year- old journalist and novelist Lucy Hawking, to write a children's book about the universe aimed at the same age group as the Harry Potter books.

"It is a story for children, which explains the wonders of the universe," said Lucy Hawking. They did not provide further details.

BobsterMan · #2 06-14-2006, 07:18 AM

Alan Guth and Joshua Winn for two, will argue, I suppose

Matt SD300 · #3 06-15-2006, 01:22 AM

Whack Job..

cmac2012 · #4 06-15-2006, 03:29 AM

I'm going to invest my money in the new biosphere to be built 1/4 mile from the south pole, with the raising of bananas and pineapples in the gynormous greenhouse and several heated swimming pools for the guests.

Such an enterprise would be approximately 100,000 times more likely to thrive than an outpost on Mars or the moon. I always wondered if Hawkings was for real. He's way off on this one.

Botnst · #5 06-15-2006, 07:54 AM

He was hawking trinkets.

peragro · #6 06-15-2006, 01:52 PM

I guess there is a reason why many of the main characters in Arthur Clarke books are Indian and from 3rd world countries.

cmac2012 · #7 06-15-2006, 01:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BlackE55

Hawking has a degree in landscape architecture and was spotted by the British paparazzi walking around Hyde Park. What a fraud.

HAH!!

I mean, I don't doubt that he's a quadrapalegic and a mathematician. I just wonder about the degree to which his repuatation is a media creation. Just the way people think that blind black people are going to be good musicians, people also are attracted to the idea of the genius mind trapped in a non-functioning body.

Sounds kinda harsh on my part, I'll admit, but I'm just not as impressed with Hawkings as the crowd is.

One of his recent pronouncements, that time and space have no beginning and no end, is not exactly a scoop. Li'l ol' peon me has been thinking that for years. What, the mass that eventually exploded into the big bang pehnomenon was just sitting there for untold, unmeasureable eons, surrounded by limitless black nothingness?

peragro · #8 06-15-2006, 03:29 PM

I think it's also interesting that this man, who occupies the same position as Isaac Newton, appeared to a sold out audience in Hong Kong. I feel that he will fail miserably in at least one of his endeavors (bold highlight below)

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Hawking says humans close to finding answers to origin of universe
Jun 15 8:15 AM US/Eastern
Email this story

Acclaimed British physicist Stephen Hawking has said that humanity is finally getting close to understanding the origin of the universe.

Speaking at a lecture in Hong Kong, Hawking said that despite some theoretical advances in the past years, there are still mysteries as to how the universe began.

"Despite having had some great successes, not everything is solved. We do not yet have good theoretical understanding of the observation of the expansion of the universe," he told an audience of 2,500 at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Thursday.

"Without such understanding, we cannot be sure of the future of the universe.

"New observational results and theoretical advances are coming in rapidly; cosmology is a very exciting subject. We are getting close to answering these old questions: why are we here, where did we come from?"

The 64-year-old also said his unfulfilled ambitions, among many, were to find out what happens inside black holes, how the universe began and how the human race can survive in the next 100 years.

Above all, he joked, he wants to understand women.

On Tuesday Hawking said the human race should reach for the stars to survive as the Earth is at risk of being wiped out by a disaster.

He believes humans should settle in space, predicting a lunar settlement within 20 years and a Martian colony in 40.

Hawking, a Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, speaks with a voice synthesiser and has been in a wheelchair since developing motor neurone disease.

During his Hong Kong visit he also revealed he is writing a children's book with his daughter about theoretical physics.

Hawking is the author of international best seller "A Brief History of Time", which attempted to explain a range of subjects in cosmology, including the Big Bang, black holes, light cones and superstring theory.

He is on a six-day visit to Hong Kong and will meet Chief Executive Donald Tsang Friday before heading to Beijing Saturday where he will give a lecture on string theory.