Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking on Fancast

Yeah..I heard others say he was the smartest guy in the planet as well. I'm sure it's entertaining...but I'd be more impressed if these smart guys got their heads out the clouds and applied their smarts to problems on the planet. Now that would be something. I think we spend to much time and money in space and not near enough on problems right under our feet.

There are complex biological, social, political and whateverelse-ical problems to overcome.  No one person has complete control over it.  But if we go down, at least we dared to dream (and of course, play Elemental and follow-ons 'til our dying day ;-)).  But one thing we can do - is treat others how we'd like to be treated, and be genuinely nice to people every day.  It may not seem so, but it makes a tangible difference to people's lives, here and now.  And while we can learn from the past, and plan for the future, the present is the gift that we can easily miss through the hustle and bustle of our lives.

Best regards,
Steven. 

Doesn't matter how smart one or two people were...or are. The vast mass of humanity still clings to violence, hatred and ignorance as their birthright...smart people have come up with basic solutions such as the golden rule, not to do what is unsustainable or damaging, to save, to help others...etc. but few keep to these principles and so very many live in squalor and disease... StevenAus has learned the golden rule...(without the reductio ad absurdam of "what if he wants to suffer/be whipped, etc.) and that is in itself a truly wonderful thing. If one wishes to change the world, he should become that change and model himself on it. If one wishes to change others, he should change himself first.

Well said, Steven...and a pleasure to read. The solutions for so many problems are in our hands already...and can be implemented.

Well said Steven, well said indeed.

Indeed. Sadly those are the cold facts of life for many more people then I'd care to think about. Human Greed has raped and pillaged our natural resources to the point that we are on the brink of mass crisis when the Oil Goes Dry which WILL happen within the next 10-20 years, GUARANTEED. I can't foresee any possible way to force man-kind to change it's ways other then the Actual Threat of extinction.

If you watch the episodes Dr Hawkings talks about what it may be like when we finally do have the technology to go to other solar systems and the number one thing that will hold the human race back is the COST of building the ship to get us off the Earth before our Sun turns into a Red Giant which Will Happen some time in the next 4 Billion Years. So, even 4 Billion years from now the number one problem that will stand in the way of us saving ourselves is Cost....you know, because there's actually a cost that's more important then Saving Our Species!!! WTF....COST?!?!?!

I would like to hope that if/when it does actually come down to us either giving up our systems based on wealth or dying off entirely that people would wake the f'k up and stop caring about money and having more stuff then everyone else. All the stuff or money in the Universe won't help you when the Earth can't support Human Life anymore...

Blah

Fixed it for ya.

Yeah I think thats pretty relevant to the course the conversation took. That being said, its nice to know we can set aside our innate selfishness to achieve things like perfecting the growth of the coffee bean. I'm sure when its crunch time that little bean will help  us pull out of disaster at the last second. Ty raven.

Fascinating stuff! This man is a genius, that is for sure, however you don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out, that there must be lot of alien species/other intelligent races living in other galaxies, or even in our galaxy.

Here is a simple example:

The Visible Universe

 Number of superclusters in the visible universe = 10 million
- Number of galaxy groups in the visible universe = 25 billion
- Number of large galaxies in the visible universe = 350 billion
- Number of dwarf galaxies in the visible universe = 7 trillion
- Number of stars in the visible universe = 30 billion trillion  (3x10²²)

Even if there was only a one in a million chance of any given star system containing life, that means millions upon millions of alien life forms/civilizations out there.

I love Hawking! Talk about making a silk purse from a sow's ear!

That said, he can be wrong. I especially loved the bet of can information leave a black hole? Black holes violate the laws of entropy, but the rules of black holes say they are static. So, a clash of wills and minds comes up with this and an admission of wrong. He was wrong about the black holes!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3913145.stm

This series was awesome, my bf and I were watching it and then was totally bummed when we found out it was *only* 3 eps (we thought it was a full on series). Wish they would have made more.

Since I'm a bit of a nerd about such things, I feel I have to correct you on this Hawking did not predict black holes. The idea was suggested as early as the late 1700's, and was "proven" before Hawking came along (a good deal of the credit goes to Einstein's general theory of relativity). I say "proven" loosely, because even today they haven't been proven to exist, although there is a lot of evidence to suggest they do. It's very hard to prove something exists when it is impossible to directly observe. Similarly, super massive black holes in the center of galaxies is not "proven" but the evidence highly suggests they exist.

Hawking's contribution to black holes is that they are not, in fact, completely "black." They actually emit tiny amounts of radation (called Hawking Radation). He also made some other significant contributions, but those are way over my head

All that aside, I agree, if he isn't the smartest human alive right now, he is pretty darn close. He is just amazing. And what makes him even more amazing is that, as Blaze of Glory said, he can be wrong. Not only that, he admits it that he was wrong, which is the really impressive part. Too often people insist that they are right, even if the evidence is to the contrary; because they don't like to be wrong.

I've only been able to watch some small clips of Into the Universe so far, but they were certainly interesting.

EDIT: For those interested:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Hawking
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermassive_black_hole
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorne%E2%80%93Hawking%E2%80%93Preskill_bet

Plus he played poker with Newton, Einstein, and Data. 

Damn kids...

Ah but, intelligence manifests itself in different forms. Because someone is good at physics doesn't mean they can solve the planet's problems. It's the same with other intelligent people, like artists, mathematicians etc. Quite often intelligence is aimed in one particular direction only.

Take me as an example: I have a higher IQ than Hawking, as officially recorded by Mensa. Yet he is a brilliant physicist and I am a complete bum... Oh well...

Plus of course the world is driven by money and greed. The really intelligent people are outnumbered by selfish greedy morons, by millions to one...

I agree Fuzzy...not about the bum part  ...in a lot of cases it's just useless intelligence. And with that in mind calling him the smartest man on the planet is a bit of a stretch. He's just outstanding in his field...much like a farmer.

Ahh but they do. There are even pictures of them taken with radio telescopes. Hold on let me see if I can find one real quick...

Here's one.

It's a artists rendering of the picture, but they have Actually found them and Know they exist for a fact. So, it has been proven today that they exist

Check out the article that talks about the discovery Here.

I couldn't find the page - it said that the link might be wrong.  And I searched for "black hole" on the site.  Are there any other requirements for reading the story?

Best regards,
Steven.

yeah I saw that interpretation of his aliens as well.......i just shook my head...C'MON STEVE..yr meant to have the brains.......

I saw Prof Hawking not that long ago.  The look on the tourists' faces as he 'trundled' down the street with an assisstant was hilarious.  As for smartest guy on the planet, dunno really.  The dude who's got Hawking's old job (you have to retire from it aged 67) is pretty smart.  The Russian mathmo Perelman is ridiculously clever, but also downright weird.

Somewhere I read that amongst the general public he is usually considered the brainiest guy around, but in a survey asking physicists who their brainiest living dude was he came last out of 20.

Oh and if you think Hawking's got some barmy ideas, go to one of his mate Roger Penrose's lectures. 

If you want the real picture of the black hole, go here: http://www.eso.org/public/archives/releases/sciencepapers/eso1028/eso1028.pdf

But even then, it's not real "proof" that they exist, it's evidence that they exist. A lot of it is really semantics, and it's kind of a stupid argument anyway, but everything scientists have found is evidence suggesting they exist, not actual proof. We have not, to my knowledge, ever seen a star collapse into a black hole. All of the math that says they should exist is based off of theories. Granted, those theories make very accurate predictions, but they remain theories.

Don't get me wrong, they almost assuredly do exist; all the evidence and math says they do, and that isn't likely to be completely wrong. But until we directly observe one (almost impossible given the nature of a black hole) it can't be said with 100% certainty, beyond a doubt, that they exist. And even then, it would be horribly hard to prove any of the theories about what goes on inside of a black hole, but that's another discussion.

Hmmm, my friend, either I'm not getting it, or maybe you're not getting what they say they found (which they aren't the first). I've even seen it on the standard news where scientists Have Said They Have Found Actual Black Holes. They have pictures of stars being sucked into them and they have pictures of them done in X-Ray which was at first our only way to see them aside from the doing the bath to show the gravity well's themselves plotted on a graph. If We have pictures of them....Real Pictures of them, then they DO Exist (not too mention what you say above about the evidence saying they exist). It was a pretty big deal to me at least when I saw that they have found them. Picture evidence doesn't lie (the real pics not artists interp).

Note: perhaps I used a bad example. I'l see if I can find more pics that call themselves real "Black Holes" and not microquasars.

No, the example is fine. The problem is that you can't see a black hole, no matter how you try (visual light, x-ray, whatever). Hence the name You can see stuff going into them, until it goes past the even horizon, and you can see the affects of their gravity on surrounding stars and whatnot, but you can't see the black hole itself. It's kind of like doublespeak, and I know it's confusing. We're 99.9999% sure that black holes do exist. For all intents and purposes they might as well have been proven to exist. If that makes any sense.

Theory is just theory.

He's spot on the money with his theory. The latest information they have brought to date about particles escaping a black hole is again correct. Aside from the Black hole seeding galaxies they can also seed universes. Amazing to be part of the internet at such a crucial point in history. Where the entire planet comes togeather to further our knowledge of the universe and nature. Highly recommend reading/watching any if not all of this mans theories. Einstein wasn't perfect either as he failed to finish many of his theories without quantum mechanics. The Hadron Super Colider will help prove some of these theories in future experiments. Einstein had to do it all by himself but today we have the world at our fingertips.

Actually...just quoting one source, but it's about 26.6% of the world's population on the net. What is true is that for that lucky (at times) percentage, there are great resources available.