[Saquist]

Did you hear what the smartest man in the world said.
...Battle Climate Change...

It's not a theory it's not ...just... a liberal agenda. Sure they've jumped on board. But it's real. This man is locked in his body, locked in a chair and takes a considerable amount of time to scan messages to communicate. I have believe he wouldn't waste time spill propaganda when he could be researching unified field theory with his time left.

That might be tenuous to some but I think that's extremely significant. Hawking says very little on controversial topics like religion and politics...

[Roysten]

I would like to see more action to tackle climate change. Not that he's an expert by any means but Patrick Stewart said he's prefer to see our efforts and energies put into helping our own planet rather then reaching out to other ones.

I personally would like to do both!

As for Kim Stanley Robinson... I've read his Mars Trilogy of books and really enjoyed them (though they are very heavy going), they come across very realistic and you can actually imagine his stories happening. So I'd certainly recommend him to people, just to warn though, he's not an action writer and events don't happen quickly. He's more into the details, the kind of books you'd love to see turned into films but you just know they wouldn't be anything like the books.

[martok2112]

I never trust anybody who uses "auto-tune" to communicate.

Just kidding. Hawking is a smart dude. Don't know if he's the smartest, but yeah, I think he can put two and two together and come up with something pretty profound.

[horatio]

What I find impressive is how Hawking can do all the maths in his head. I never could do fairly moderate maths without scribbling a lot and trying things out on paper to get my head around it.

One should not idolize him or any other person though. OK, I also have my scientific idol, the economist Joe Stiglitz, but whenever I read something of him I try to keep my awe in check and be as ruthlessly critical as possible ... with the emphasis being on try.

[martok2112]

Originally Posted by horatio

What I find impressive is how Hawking can do all the maths in his head. I never could to fairly moderate maths without scribbling a lot and trying things out on paper to get my head around it.

One should not idolize him or any other person though. OK, I also have my scientific idol, the economist Joe Stiglitz, but whenever I read something of him I try to keep my awe in check and be as ruthlessly critical as possible ... with the emphasis being on try.

Oh, indeed....I envy and admire Hawking's abilities. Hell, I have a rough enough time trying to put two and two together in me own noggin' without coming up with a fraction somewhere.

Then again, math was never my strong suit anyway.

5/4's of people in the world have problems with fractions, btw.

[Saquist]

Originally Posted by chator

Playing Devil's advocate, humanity has survived pole reversals, ice ages, earthquakes, floods, tsunamis, all manner of man-made, and natural disasters. I believe humans would survive a nuclear war.

Inspite of Hawking's genius, going into space because human life is in danger on the Earth is such a weak argument. Human life is 1000X more in danger in space or on another planet. Even if humans colonized another world, humans there would not be self-sufficient, they would still depend on the resources from Earth. So if humans on Earth were completely wiped out, the extra-terrestrial humans would be *****ed as well.

Nevertheless, I think Hawking makes a good point about the money, more should go into space exploration and research.

I don't think you understood.
Many individuals like him have crunched thee numbers and humans might well be living on borrowed time. If Apophis strikes the "key hole" on this pass it would turn theory into reality and destroy us in 2029. Did you not read the recent thread about Earth's Trojan asteroids? These Asteroids are int he SAME orbit as Earth. One on modification with their orbit and they can easilyl be sent toward us.

Have you not seen how many impact craters there are on Earth? 25 Identifiable craters at 20 KM or more that we've been able to find... 14 of them are earlier than the Dinosaur killing asteroid. All but the BIG TOP 3 were under 100 KM. This is a very common event.

And Frankly if life is as rare as Mr. Hawking belives it to be at this intelligence level they we're really playing Russian Roulette here because it says there are a lot of life killing events our there and we've been Lucky.


Further, Hawking is not talking about just Mars, but planets ELSEWHERE in the universe or our galactic neighbor hood. Any Ex-solar Colony would have to be self sufficient...Period. That's the whole purpose in find EARTH like planets to colonize.

Originally Posted by Roysten

I would like to see more action to tackle climate change. Not that he's an expert by any means but Patrick Stewart said he's prefer to see our efforts and energies put into helping our own planet rather then reaching out to other ones.

I personally would like to do both!

As for Kim Stanley Robinson... I've read his Mars Trilogy of books and really enjoyed them (though they are very heavy going), they come across very realistic and you can actually imagine his stories happening. So I'd certainly recommend him to people, just to warn though, he's not an action writer and events don't happen quickly. He's more into the details, the kind of books you'd love to see turned into films but you just know they wouldn't be anything like the books.

I watched another video with Hawking in it last night.
He said, If we were capable of making good decisions about survival over territorial problems then there would be no conflicts on Earths. But that's why we're our own worse enemy.

Biological and Nuclear War are still THE likely ways the world will end according to him because we have the technology but not the temperment. It noted that Russia and the US still have thousands of nukes in their arsenal and haven't stood down from the Cold War even today.

THERE HAVE ALREADY BEEN MANY OCCASIONS...
Where we've comes seconds to full nuclear exchange.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_W...al_close_calls

Would you like to SEE. How many nuclear detonations there have been on Earth since Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9lqu...feature=colike

[horatio]

Originally Posted by martok2112

Oh, indeed....I envy and admire Hawking's abilities. Hell, I have a rough enough time trying to put two and two together in me own noggin' without coming up with a fraction somewhere.

Then again, math was never my strong suit anyway.

5/4's of people in the world have problems with fractions, btw.

Well, unless you wanna rip yourself off via buying some funky derivatives it is not like you really need maths in everyday life.
As far as I know mathematics, music and chess are the only areas where true prodigies exist so I guess that the opposite must also exist. I am e.g. totally lacking any musical skills and I'd exchange calculus anytime for your voice.

[martok2112]

Originally Posted by horatio

Well, unless you wanna rip yourself off via buying some funky derivatives it is not like you really need maths in everyday life.
As far as I know mathematics, music and chess are the only areas where true prodigies exist so I guess that the opposite must also exist. I am e.g. totally lacking any musical skills and I'd exchange calculus anytime for your voice.

You flatter me, sir. Thank you.

This reminds me of a visual joke I saw the other day.

A girl is talking to a former algebra teacher. She says something like : "Hey, Ms. Morten. Ya know, I've been out of high school like 10 years, and I was never great at algebra. Never once in my life skills
was there a need to 'find X'. So there! FACE!"

[chator]

Originally Posted by Saquist

I don't think you understood.

Have you not seen how many impact craters there are on Earth? 25 Identifiable craters at 20 KM or more that we've been able to find... 14 of them are earlier than the Dinosaur killing asteroid. All but the BIG TOP 3 were under 100 KM. This is a very common event.

And Frankly if life is as rare as Mr. Hawking belives it to be at this intelligence level they we're really playing Russian Roulette here because it says there are a lot of life killing events our there and we've been Lucky.

Further, Hawking is not talking about just Mars, but planets ELSEWHERE in the universe or our galactic neighbor hood. Any Ex-solar Colony would have to be self sufficient...Period. That's the whole purpose in find EARTH like planets to colonize.

Biological and Nuclear War are still THE likely ways the world will end according to him because we have the technology but not the temperment. It noted that Russia and the US still have thousands of nukes in their arsenal and haven't stood down from the Cold War even today.

THERE HAVE ALREADY BEEN MANY OCCASIONS...
Where we've comes seconds to full nuclear exchange.

Oh, I know about Apophisis, and impact crators, I'm also aware of the dangers of biological and nuclear war. I live in the U.S., and I watched X-men First Class, so I know about the Cuban missle crisis. I'm also aware of the dangers of global warming, I live near the coast. I simply believe humans would survive such disasters. I think the position of humans on another planet would be very precarious. Unless, we can successfully terraform a planet like Mars and make it habitable, but that is hundreds of years off, if it can even be done. There might be some unique environmental circumstances that might prevent us from creating a long-term, stable, habitable environment, and breathable atmosphere on Mars. Scientists will first want to study Mars "as is" and learn as much about its past history, this will take a long time. Terraforming is controversial and risky, some scientists may oppose it, it will take huge political hurdles to overcome the political obstacles. Its likely the first colonizations of the Moon or Mars will simply be tiny, research outposts. Colonizing Mars is hundreds of years off, so not a good short-term solution to global warming, or nuclear war risks. As far as planets elsewhere in the universe, I don't think you realize how far off we are from that techwise. With current propulsion technology, it would take is tens of thousands of years to reach the nearest star, Alpha Centari. The humans that launched wouldn't outlive the voyage unless they could be put in some sort of stasis, like in Alien or Prometheus. We would need really well designed spacecraft that could operate independently and with minimum maintenance for tens of thousands of years. Sound realistic? No, of course not! That's why I say interstellar space travel is the stuff of science fiction/fantasy.

[kevin]

I would agree with that. The technology at the moment to tie everything together simply isn't there and wouldn't be even in twenty, fifty or so.

It's a much longer curve to get there. If ever.