Tuesday, January 10, 2012 3:51:27 PM
Prof Stephen Hawking: man faces nuclear armageddon and must colonise space
Professor Stephen Hawking in his office at University of Cambridge
Photo: Sarah Lee/Science Museum
Mankind faces nuclear armageddon and must build colonies on Mars and beyond, Stephen Hawking has said.
By Matthew Holehouse
8:48AM GMT 06 Jan 2012
"It is possible that the human race could become extinct but it is not inevitable. I think it is almost certain that a disaster, such as nuclear war or global warming, will befall the earth within a thousands years," Professor Hawking, the Cambridge University cosmologist and theoretical physicist said.
"It is essential that we colonise space. I believe that we will eventually establish self-sustaining colonies on Mars, and other bodies in the solar system, although probably not within the next 100 years.
"I am optimistic that progress within science and technology will eventually allow humans to spread beyond the solar system and out into the far-reaches of the universe," he said.
Professor Hawking was answering questions submitted by listeners to BBC Radio 4's Today programme to mark his seventieth birthday.
But if man should meet alien life on its journey into space, the consequences for humanity could be grave, Prof Hawking warned.
"The discovery of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe would be the greatest scientific discovery ever. But it would be very risky to attempt to communicate with an alien civilisation.
"If aliens decided to visit us, then the outcome might be similar to when Europeans arrived in the Americas. That did not turn out well for the Native Americans."
He said did not believe the results of the CERN experiments which appeared to show particles travelling faster than the speed of light - in defiance of the known laws of physics.
"Einstein's theory of relativity predicts that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. Thus if the Opera experiment is correct, and neutrinos do travel faster than light, then relativity theory is wrong.
"However, I don't believe the Opera results, because they disagree with the detection of neutrinos from supernova SN 1987A."
Bursts of neutrinos detected in 1987 from that stellar explosion suggested neutrinos travel at the same speed of light. If CERN's experiment is correct, they would have been detected on earth years before the light from the explosion was seen on earth, physicists believe. Instead, they arrived within hours of one another.
A listener from Lagos asked Hawking, Britain's most celebrated physicist, whether there "was a time when there was nothing".
"The origin of the universe can be explained by the laws of physics, without any need for miracles or divine intervention," replied the professor, who uses a speech synthesizer due to his debilitating Motor Neurone Disease.
"These laws predict that the universe was spontaneously created out of nothing in a rapidly expanding state. It's called inflation, because it's like the way prices go up at an ever increasing rate. Time is defined only with the universe, so it makes no sense to talk about the time before the universe began. It would be like asking for a point south of the south pole."
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© Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2012
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/stephen-hawking/8996654/Prof-Stephen-Hawking-man-faces-nuclear-armageddon-and-must-colonise-space.html [with comments]
Professor Stephen Hawking in his office at University of Cambridge
Photo: Sarah Lee/Science Museum
Mankind faces nuclear armageddon and must build colonies on Mars and beyond, Stephen Hawking has said.
By Matthew Holehouse
8:48AM GMT 06 Jan 2012
"It is possible that the human race could become extinct but it is not inevitable. I think it is almost certain that a disaster, such as nuclear war or global warming, will befall the earth within a thousands years," Professor Hawking, the Cambridge University cosmologist and theoretical physicist said.
"It is essential that we colonise space. I believe that we will eventually establish self-sustaining colonies on Mars, and other bodies in the solar system, although probably not within the next 100 years.
"I am optimistic that progress within science and technology will eventually allow humans to spread beyond the solar system and out into the far-reaches of the universe," he said.
Professor Hawking was answering questions submitted by listeners to BBC Radio 4's Today programme to mark his seventieth birthday.
But if man should meet alien life on its journey into space, the consequences for humanity could be grave, Prof Hawking warned.
"The discovery of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe would be the greatest scientific discovery ever. But it would be very risky to attempt to communicate with an alien civilisation.
"If aliens decided to visit us, then the outcome might be similar to when Europeans arrived in the Americas. That did not turn out well for the Native Americans."
He said did not believe the results of the CERN experiments which appeared to show particles travelling faster than the speed of light - in defiance of the known laws of physics.
"Einstein's theory of relativity predicts that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. Thus if the Opera experiment is correct, and neutrinos do travel faster than light, then relativity theory is wrong.
"However, I don't believe the Opera results, because they disagree with the detection of neutrinos from supernova SN 1987A."
Bursts of neutrinos detected in 1987 from that stellar explosion suggested neutrinos travel at the same speed of light. If CERN's experiment is correct, they would have been detected on earth years before the light from the explosion was seen on earth, physicists believe. Instead, they arrived within hours of one another.
A listener from Lagos asked Hawking, Britain's most celebrated physicist, whether there "was a time when there was nothing".
"The origin of the universe can be explained by the laws of physics, without any need for miracles or divine intervention," replied the professor, who uses a speech synthesizer due to his debilitating Motor Neurone Disease.
"These laws predict that the universe was spontaneously created out of nothing in a rapidly expanding state. It's called inflation, because it's like the way prices go up at an ever increasing rate. Time is defined only with the universe, so it makes no sense to talk about the time before the universe began. It would be like asking for a point south of the south pole."
*
Related Articles
Prof Hawking voice 'at risk'
05 Jan 2012
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/stephen-hawking/8994788/Prof-Stephen-Hawkings-voice-slows-down-as-his-face-muscles-weaken.html
Hawking: 'Women are a mystery'
04 Jan 2012
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/stephen-hawking/8993228/Stephen-Hawking-Women-are-a-complete-mystery.html
Stephen Hawking tells Google ‘philosophy is dead’
17 May 2011
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/8520033/Stephen-Hawking-tells-Google-philosophy-is-dead.html
Stephen Hawking: ten pearls of wisdom
03 Sep 2010
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/7978898/Stephen-Hawking-ten-pearls-of-wisdom.html
*
© Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2012
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/stephen-hawking/8996654/Prof-Stephen-Hawking-man-faces-nuclear-armageddon-and-must-colonise-space.html [with comments]
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from John Philpot Curran, Speech
upon the Right of Election, 1790
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