Stephen Hawking is getting braver in his old age.

[Checkmite]

Stephen Hawking is getting something in his old age. I've been a little leery ever since that "we need to be scared of invading aliens" thing he came up with.

 

[Towlie]

Stephen Hawking is getting something in his old age. I've been a little leery ever since that "we need to be scared of invading aliens" thing he came up with.

I remember a quote from a woman I saw on television several decades ago, but, unfortunately, I don't remember who she was. She said this:

"Either there is intelligent life out there or there isn't, and either answer is stunning."

 

[Paulhoff]

Stephen Hawking is getting something in his old age. I've been a little leery ever since that "we need to be scared of invading aliens" thing he came up with.

That idea has been said many times before. I watch Hawking's show couple of times and didn't think it was as big a deal as it has been made out to be. It seems that many like to make things bigger then they should be made, mainly when it something they don't want to hear.


Paul

 

[Towlie]

I suspect that "we need to be scared of invading aliens" is an unfair interpretation of what Hawking actually said. I think that, without actually addressing the probability that there will actually be interstellar contact, he was questioning the assumption that if there is contact the beings will be benevolent and friendly. He made an excellent point and he wasn't the first to make it: We have several examples in our history of advanced people making contact with more primitive people and the outcome has always been tragic for the primitive people. Why should we assume that alien beings will behave any differently than we do?

I agree with him; the Independence Day model seems much more realistic than the Contact model.

 

[DrBaltar]

I read the Grand Design, and like all other popular physics books I needed to skim past the history science and physics from Pythagoras to quantum gravity. But I didn't see the answers to one of the questions he promised answering... "Why is there something rather than nothing". Did I miss it? He mentioned why space can't be empty, but space is still something. The laws that dictate that space can't be empty is something. etc

 

[A Christian Sceptic]

I read the Grand Design, and like all other popular physics books I needed to skim past the history science and physics from Pythagoras to quantum gravity. But I didn't see the answers to one of the questions he promised answering... "Why is there something rather than nothing". Did I miss it? He mentioned why space can't be empty, but space is still something. The laws that dictate that space can't be empty is something. etc

I heard a radio interview with the co-author (another physicist I believe).

He said that Physics now shows that - Something can be created out of Nothing.

In Hawkings Essay he published he also states that we live in a "extreme" (his word) Fine Tuned Universe.

With largely these two observations the conclusion Hawkings has come to is that apparently because we live in a "extreme" fine tuned universe that was created out of nothing there was no God needed to create this "extreme" fine-tuned universe out of nothing.