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Is Stephen Hawkings losing it?

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danny_galaga:

The dude seems to be making freakier and freakier 'sci fi' type claims and predictions lately:

http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/technology/7153027/time-travel-possible-hawking

or this, which is an 'appeal to mere authority'

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-20003358-71.html

Most scientists do their best work when they are in their 20's and 30's. I guess hawking has run out of original stuff to say?

drventure:
Those headlines are a bit sensationalist, I think.

First, his "traveling into the future" is simply a pretty lame way of describing what would happen if a person was to ride for an extended period on a spaceship that could travel close to the speed of light. That's pretty well known stuff, not crackpot theories.

As for the the show on aliens, I actually just watched it a few days back. Pretty interesting, and he makes a number of good points.

Scientific American had an article a while back that essentially said "the only reason humanity is where it is today, is because we're essentially galactic country bumkins, living in a solar system that is, relatively speaking, a LONG LONG way from much of anything interesting going on at all.

We're actually between two arms of the Milky way, with not much around us but open space. They theorized that if we were actually within one of the arms or worse, more toward the galactic center, cosmic collisions, extra radiation, etc, would be so prevalent, life would like never have had enough time to evolve to the point that at has here without getting wiped out by a comet or whatnot, and having to start all over again.

And the comparison between us and native americans when Columbus came around? I could easily see that. Consider our own view of an ant, or a cockroach. They aren't intelligent, can't communicate with us, and are tiny, so we stomp em and move on. An alien race that's built ships capable of intersteller travel would have to be +awfully+ compassionate to give a rats ass about race of beings like us, living on a backwater planet, having +only+ sent their people to their moon, and a few robots to their next planet over.

I remember a show (was it Twilight zone?) that made the comment, "we've been sending out all these messages in the form of TV and radio broadcasts for 70+ years now, having no idea who or what out there might be listening, or who's "screen" we might pop up on as a "system of interest".

SavannahLion:
+1

What's scary is the comments on those pages. Jesus, are people really that stupid?

drventure:

--- Quote ---Jesus, are people really that stupid?
--- End quote ---

Oh, come now. Do you +really+ need to ask that question  ;)

Some of the comments are pretty decent. Then you get into the people quoting "quantum mechanics" and it's all downhill from there...

RayB:
What's the big deal, he didn't say anything "insane" or outrageous. In fact, the first article even says:

He also admits that he shied away from time travel discussions in the past.
"Time travel was once considered scientific heresy," he said.
"I used to avoid talking about it for fear of being labelled a crank."

He has a new documentary out and whatever company involved is trying to promote by issuing press releases articles based on small quotes or theories in the documentary.


Re the comment about quantum mechanics. You can blame Oprah and her pimping "The Secret". Now millions of women (and some men I guess) out there think they are "quantum mechanics" experts after studying the claims that sham makes.

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