Death of Stephen Hawking

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#1977239 15-Mar-2018 16:19

networkn:

Maybe I am missing the point, but what do we gain from an understanding of this? The likelyhood of humans surviving the next 2000 years is remote to say the least, let alone any number multiples higher.

If those resources were spent on renewable energy etc, surely it would be of greater value?

Perhaps just looking for an understanding of what the point of it all is?

It beats religion (in my view) which once claimed to have all the answers, and that's been one of the greatest money-making con-jobs of all time - let alone being an excuse for wreaking death and destruction across the planet for a couple of thousand years.

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#1977272 15-Mar-2018 16:41

Fred99:

networkn:

Maybe I am missing the point, but what do we gain from an understanding of this? The likelyhood of humans surviving the next 2000 years is remote to say the least, let alone any number multiples higher.

If those resources were spent on renewable energy etc, surely it would be of greater value?

Perhaps just looking for an understanding of what the point of it all is?

It beats religion (in my view) which once claimed to have all the answers, and that's been one of the greatest money-making con-jobs of all time - let alone being an excuse for wreaking death and destruction across the planet for a couple of thousand years.

What has been done in the name of religion for good is going to FAR outweigh what has been bad.

I find applying todays standards based on the knowledge we have now, to things that happened in the past where that knowledge etc wasn't present, is a very dangerous way to impose a view.

It's somewhat similar to people who talk about how terrible it is that a woman in Syria might be stoned to death for cheating on her Husband. It seems Barbaric by *our* standards and *our* culture and *our* beliefs based on the knowledge we have accumulated, but in truth, every woman in Syria grows up knowing the consequence of such actions. I don't believe we have any right necessarily to impose our views or standards on another.

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#1977275 15-Mar-2018 16:48

A great loss to humanity. He had immense intelligence but for me it was the way he fought his profound disabilities, truly inspirational. RIP

Fred99

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#1977291 15-Mar-2018 18:19

networkn:

Fred99:

networkn:

Maybe I am missing the point, but what do we gain from an understanding of this? The likelyhood of humans surviving the next 2000 years is remote to say the least, let alone any number multiples higher.

If those resources were spent on renewable energy etc, surely it would be of greater value?

Perhaps just looking for an understanding of what the point of it all is?

It beats religion (in my view) which once claimed to have all the answers, and that's been one of the greatest money-making con-jobs of all time - let alone being an excuse for wreaking death and destruction across the planet for a couple of thousand years.

What has been done in the name of religion for good is going to FAR outweigh what has been bad.

I strongly disagree with that - and suggest we leave it there.

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#1977299 15-Mar-2018 18:41

Agreed - leave religion out of this thread.

Fred99

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#1977302 15-Mar-2018 18:48

freitasm:

Agreed - leave religion out of this thread.

May I suggest that out of respect and to honour Hawking, an insight into his own beliefs may be warranted - as it's quite fundamental to who he was and what he did.

A link to an article including some quotes is here:

http://time.com/5199149/stephen-hawking-death-god-atheist/

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#1977307 15-Mar-2018 18:56

Fred99:

freitasm:

Agreed - leave religion out of this thread.

May I suggest that out of respect and to honour Hawking, an insight into his own beliefs may be warranted - as it's quite fundamental to who he was and what he did.

What is not ok is one attacking the other because of their different views.

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#1977311 15-Mar-2018 19:08

I think the guy was amazing. I remember reading several of his books when I was at school, and how he lived with the illness. He managed to live a full and long life, despite some significant disabilities, and the fact that they didn't expect him to live beyond 23.

Fred99

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#1977313 15-Mar-2018 19:10

freitasm:

Fred99:

freitasm:

Agreed - leave religion out of this thread.

May I suggest that out of respect and to honour Hawking, an insight into his own beliefs may be warranted - as it's quite fundamental to who he was and what he did.

What is not ok is one attacking the other because of their different views.

I fully agree, and given the delicate nature of the issue, there's a touch of irony to that :-)

Fred99

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#1977314 15-Mar-2018 19:13

mattwnz:

I think the guy was amazing. I remember reading several of his books when I was at school, and how he lived with the illness. He managed to live a full and long life, despite some significant disabilities, and the fact that they didn't expect him to live beyond 23.

Indeed, and I believe that this motivated him in the manner of "life is short - especially for me - I'd better get on with what I want to do - and fast".

Dial111

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#1978325 15-Mar-2018 21:33

Curiosity Stream is showing Steven Hawking's Favourite Places free of charge until 23/8/18 in his honour. Great watch!

https://app.curiositystream.com/video/1697/stephen-hawkings-favorite-places

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#1978520 16-Mar-2018 11:15

i'm sorry he is gone. It is a loss to us all when someone quirky, different, full of curiosity and the strength to be different dies.

I'm doubly sad as i had been reading his essays / speeches and about his life for two days before his death. I have two questions about his work that i would have loved to hear an answer to.

1 - If the universe is still accelerating that would suggest an energy source as acceleration requires constant input of increasing energy. Wouldn't that energy source show the location of the big bang?

2 - If all matter was condensed into a tiny sphere at he beginning, why didn't things like plutonium go critical and destroy everything in its blast radius? Or was everything like hydrogen and become more dense elements over time and if that was the case how do we achieve that today. (would solve a lot of resource issues if you could transmute lead into gold for instance). or was the initial super dense mass a soup of protons, neutrons, electrons and sub atomic particles that when they exploded made themselves into all the different elements?

He claims because the big bang was theoretically outside of time it means it precluded the need for God as if there is no beginning there is no need for a first entity to kick it all off - but that still leaves the issue of how matter formed itself into all sorts of different types and where the laws that govern physics come from. He would have been fascinating to talk to about some of his thoughts on that stuff.

He seemed to be half philosopher and half mathmetician / physicist. Would have made for some quirky conversations.

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#1978550 16-Mar-2018 11:43

nunz:

i'm sorry he is gone. It is a loss to us all when someone quirky, different, full of curiosity and the strength to be different dies.

I'm doubly sad as i had been reading his essays / speeches and about his life for two days before his death. I have two questions about his work that i would have loved to hear an answer to.

1 - If the universe is still accelerating that would suggest an energy source as acceleration requires constant input of increasing energy. Wouldn't that energy source show the location of the big bang?

2 - If all matter was condensed into a tiny sphere at he beginning, why didn't things like plutonium go critical and destroy everything in its blast radius? Or was everything like hydrogen and become more dense elements over time and if that was the case how do we achieve that today. (would solve a lot of resource issues if you could transmute lead into gold for instance). or was the initial super dense mass a soup of protons, neutrons, electrons and sub atomic particles that when they exploded made themselves into all the different elements?

He claims because the big bang was theoretically outside of time it means it precluded the need for God as if there is no beginning there is no need for a first entity to kick it all off - but that still leaves the issue of how matter formed itself into all sorts of different types and where the laws that govern physics come from. He would have been fascinating to talk to about some of his thoughts on that stuff.

He seemed to be half philosopher and half mathmetician / physicist. Would have made for some quirky conversations.

He has changed his theories and proposed wild differentials in the last few years. I would like to see a comparison of his theories between when he started and where it ended. You could say as we know more we improve, but I'm not so sure. I thing the more we know the less we actually know in certain areas. And where's the extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence mantra when people hear Stephen Hawking it must be true.

Fred99

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#1978560 16-Mar-2018 11:59

nunz:

i'm sorry he is gone. It is a loss to us all when someone quirky, different, full of curiosity and the strength to be different dies.

I'm doubly sad as i had been reading his essays / speeches and about his life for two days before his death. I have two questions about his work that i would have loved to hear an answer to.

1 - If the universe is still accelerating that would suggest an energy source as acceleration requires constant input of increasing energy. Wouldn't that energy source show the location of the big bang?

2 - If all matter was condensed into a tiny sphere at he beginning, why didn't things like plutonium go critical and destroy everything in its blast radius? Or was everything like hydrogen and become more dense elements over time and if that was the case how do we achieve that today. (would solve a lot of resource issues if you could transmute lead into gold for instance). or was the initial super dense mass a soup of protons, neutrons, electrons and sub atomic particles that when they exploded made themselves into all the different elements?

He claims because the big bang was theoretically outside of time it means it precluded the need for God as if there is no beginning there is no need for a first entity to kick it all off - but that still leaves the issue of how matter formed itself into all sorts of different types and where the laws that govern physics come from. He would have been fascinating to talk to about some of his thoughts on that stuff.

He seemed to be half philosopher and half mathmetician / physicist. Would have made for some quirky conversations.

Simple answer to 1) I believe is that it's believed to be inflating in all directions and regardless of where you are in the universe, you'll observe the universe expanding away from you exactly the same way as you do from our position on earth. So there is no "centre". The counter to that (as we can't actually see from somewhere distant in the universe) is that we are actually dead centre in the universe, as it's expanding away from us at the same rate whichever direction we look. That hypothesis rejected because it's statistically so improbable - it's almost certainly wrong to expect that just because we're here to observe it, we must be at the dead centre of something so vast - as if it was all divinely created for us. Then again...

As for 2), then it actually took a very long time for those heavier elements to form as they were produced after light elements had coalesced to form stars - so there was no plutonium. OTOH there were fusion reactions going on shortly (minutes?) after the big bang as the temperature cooled enough so that atomic nuclei of those light elements could form. There are also theories like the "Zero Energy Universe" which don't contradict the big bang hypothesis, but suggest that the universe could have just "appeared" from nothing - a point in spacetime where the mass/energy total was actually zero - as it is "cancelled out" by gravity as a form of "negative energy".

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#1978577 16-Mar-2018 12:21

Fred99:

nunz:

i'm sorry he is gone. It is a loss to us all when someone quirky, different, full of curiosity and the strength to be different dies.

I'm doubly sad as i had been reading his essays / speeches and about his life for two days before his death. I have two questions about his work that i would have loved to hear an answer to.

1 - If the universe is still accelerating that would suggest an energy source as acceleration requires constant input of increasing energy. Wouldn't that energy source show the location of the big bang?

2 - If all matter was condensed into a tiny sphere at he beginning, why didn't things like plutonium go critical and destroy everything in its blast radius? Or was everything like hydrogen and become more dense elements over time and if that was the case how do we achieve that today. (would solve a lot of resource issues if you could transmute lead into gold for instance). or was the initial super dense mass a soup of protons, neutrons, electrons and sub atomic particles that when they exploded made themselves into all the different elements?

He claims because the big bang was theoretically outside of time it means it precluded the need for God as if there is no beginning there is no need for a first entity to kick it all off - but that still leaves the issue of how matter formed itself into all sorts of different types and where the laws that govern physics come from. He would have been fascinating to talk to about some of his thoughts on that stuff.

He seemed to be half philosopher and half mathmetician / physicist. Would have made for some quirky conversations.

Simple answer to 1) I believe is that it's believed to be inflating in all directions and regardless of where you are in the universe, you'll observe the universe expanding away from you exactly the same way as you do from our position on earth. So there is no "centre". The counter to that (as we can't actually see from somewhere distant in the universe) is that we are actually dead centre in the universe, as it's expanding away from us at the same rate whichever direction we look. That hypothesis rejected because it's statistically so improbable - it's almost certainly wrong to expect that just because we're here to observe it, we must be at the dead centre of something so vast - as if it was all divinely created for us. Then again...

As for 2), then it actually took a very long time for those heavier elements to form as they were produced after light elements had coalesced to form stars - so there was no plutonium. OTOH there were fusion reactions going on shortly (minutes?) after the big bang as the temperature cooled enough so that atomic nuclei of those light elements could form. There are also theories like the "Zero Energy Universe" which don't contradict the big bang hypothesis, but suggest that the universe could have just "appeared" from nothing - a point in spacetime where the mass/energy total was actually zero - as it is "cancelled out" by gravity as a form of "negative energy".

My understanding in 1 is that the scientists don't understand the acceleration of the universe, and they have coined 2 terms dark matter (to explain the imbalance of mass) and dark energy (the invisible energy driving the expansion). What you can't understand you can't calculate!

There's a lot more to the lack of understanding ... because exactly 50% of stuff is missing that are supposed to be around ... antimatter.

Regarding 2 my understanding is this.

At the big bang and everything before the big bang, current **laws of physics do not apply, and certainly CANNOT apply. So really ... nobody can know, even though they claim to hypothesise, in actual fact, any of their hypotheses is as good as "god made the big bang". Really.

**The current laws of physics came to be at around trillionths of seconds after the big bang (apparently). There are scientists who are not sure if the laws of physics apply throughout the entire universe or not.

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