Free Republic

Hawking at Harvard At packed Sanders Theatre, theoretical physicist and cosmologist tackles the contradictory qualities of black holes April 18, 2016 | Editor's Pick Popular Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Staff Photographer"If determinism — the predictability of the universe — breaks down in black holes, it could break down in other situations. Even worse, if determinism breaks down, we can’t be sure of our past history either. The history books and our memories could just be illusions. It is the past that tells us who we are. Without it, we lose our identity," said Stephen Hawking. By Peter Reuell, Harvard Staff Writer Twitter...

Stephen Hawking is backing a project to send tiny spacecraft to another star system within a generation. They would travel trillions of miles; far further than any previous craft. A $100m (£70m) research programme to develop the computer chip-sized "starships" was launched by the billionaire Yuri Milner, supported by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Interstellar travel has long been a dream for many, but significant technological hurdles remain. But Prof Hawking told BBC News that fantasy could be realised sooner than we might think. Media captionThe spacecraft would be propelled from earth by a giant laser, as Pallab Ghosh reports "If...

While Hawking fears that giving aliens our cosmic address could potentially bring death and ruin — much like what happened to many groups of Native Americans when Europeans invaded North America — Tarter thinks that aliens advanced enough to skip across star systems and reach Earth will be friendly, not aggressive.  

Stephen Hawking's New Black-Hole Paper, Translated: An Interview with Co-Author Andrew Strominger The Harvard string theorist explains the collaboration's long-awaited research on the black-hole information paradox Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Reddit Email Print Share via Google+Stumble Upon Penrose diagram for a semiclassical evaporating black hole, as presented in "Soft Hair on Black Holes." CREDIT: Prahar Mitra In the mid 1970s, Stephen Hawking made a string of unnerving discoveries about black holes—that they could evaporate, even explode, and destroy all information about what had fallen in. Physicists spent the next 40 years sorting through the wreckage. Then last year, at a...

American space agency, the NASA had recently observed flares of X-rays from a black hole, which goes against the conventional notion that they are compact particles with such huge gravity that even light can't escape. Last month NASA announced that two of its space telescopes caught a huge burst of X-ray spewing out of a super massive black hole. These flairs appeared to be be triggered by the eruption of a charged particle from the black hole, which according to conventional belief doesn't let anything out. The latest findings are in accordance with the theory of Indian astrophysicist Abhas Mitra...

Russian billionaire Yuri Milner announces most comprehensive hunt for alien life.You could say that the silence has been deafening. Since its beginnings more than half a century ago, the dedicated search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) has failed to detect the presence of alien civilizations. But at London’s Royal Society today (20 July), Russian billionaire Yuri Milner announced a shot in the arm for SETI: a US$100-million decadal project to provide the most comprehensive hunt for alien communications so far. The initiative, called Breakthrough Listen, will see radio telescopes at Green Bank in West Virginia, the Parkes Observatory in Australia, and...

When Mark Zuckerberg does Townhall Q&As on Facebook to hear from users, he gets thousands of questions. Sometimes famous people ask questions. On Tuesday, Stephen Hawking asked him a question. "I would like to know a unified theory of gravity and the other forces. Which of the big questions in science would you like to know the answer to and why?" the world-famous physicist posted on Facebook through a verified account. His question received over 6,000 likes. "I don't think Mark would wanna answer this," one Facebook user joked. "Mr. Hawking wins the best question Q&A award," another quipped. "Epic,...

British physicist Stephen Hawking, the brilliant man who wrote "A Brief History of Time," says aliens probably exist and frets that if they discover Earth their intentions might be less like the film, "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and more like the book, "A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." In the book, alien bureaucrats determine the Earth should be demolished to make way for space highway and blow the Earth up. Sorry. Nothing personal. Prepare to die. It's not such a crazy thought, says Hawking, in a Discovery Channel series. "To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking...

Professor Stephen Hawking said he would consider assisted suicide under certain circumstances. The Telegraph published some of his quotes from a BBC interview set to air June 15. The 73-year-old physicist allegedly talks about his loneliness and difficulty he has connecting with others. “At times I get very lonely because people are afraid to talk to me or don’t wait for me to write a response,” he said. He also brought up the subject death. “I would consider assisted suicide only if I were in great pain or felt I had nothing more to contribute but was just a burden...

Stephen Hawking today warned that computers will overtake humans in terms of intelligence at some point within the next century. Speaking at the Zeitgeist 2015 conference in London, the internationally renowned cosmologist and Cambridge University professor, said: “Computers will overtake humans with AI at some within the next 100 years. When that happens, we need to make sure the computers have goals aligned with ours.” Hawking, who signed an open letter alongside Elon Musk earlier this year warning AI development should not go on uncontrolled, added: “Our future is a race between the growing power of technology and the wisdom...

Meanwhile, scientists have learned what people would say on making first contact with aliens and it is not “take me to your leader”. Instead, they are much more likely to ask the extraterrestrials for help. Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence scientist Doug Vakoch said: “One of the striking commonalities — men and women, young and old — was a message ‘please help’. “A sense that we are in a very precarious time in our development as a civilisation,” said Dr Vakoch. “Our technologies are greater than our social stability. So if we make contact with another civilisation that may be more...

LONDON: Stephen Hawking has recently warned that the God particle or Higgs boson has the potential to obliterate the universe. The 72-year-old cosmologist said Higgs boson could become unstable at very high energy levels, which would lead to a "catastrophic vacuum decay" causing space and time to collapse and that there would not be any warning to the danger, the Daily Express reported. Speaking in the preface to a new book called Starmus, the Cambridge-educated scientist said that the Higgs potential has the worrisome feature that it might become mega-stable at energies above 100bn giga-electron-volts (GeV). However, Hawking did also...

Black holes can radiate in a way that agrees with thermodynamics, and the region near the event horizon doesn’t have a firewall, just as general relativity requires. So Hawking’s proposal is a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.

From the idea that our universe is one among many, to the revelation that mathematician Pythagoras didn't actually invent the Pythagorean theorem, here are eight shocking things we learned from reading physicist Stephen Hawking's new book, "The Grand Design," written with fellow physicist Leonard Mlodinow of Caltech. The book, covering major questions about the nature and origin of the universe, was released Sept. 7, 2010, by its publisher, Bantam.

For starters, to set back human progress. You would think the Left would love a country that has universal health care, prosperous trade unions, and same sex marriage. All of these things can be found in Israel. Yet where Israel is concerned, none of these count with the Left. -------------------------- Well, if not for Israeli science and technology, Stephen Hawking could not communicate with the world. As Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, an Israeli attorney, stated, “His whole computer-based communications system runs on a chip designed by Israel’s Intel team. I suggest if he truly wants to pull out of Israel he should...

Stephen Hawking's decision to boycott an Israeli conference in protest at the state's 46-year occupation of Palestine was derided as hypocritical by some, who pointed out that the celebrated scientist and author uses Israeli technology in the computer equipment that allows him to function. Hawking, 71, has suffered from motor neurone disease for the past 50 years, and relies on a computer-based system to communicate. According to Shurat HaDin, an Israel law centre which represents victims of terrorism, the equipment has been provided by the hi-tech firm, Intel, since 1997. "Hawking's decision to join the boycott of Israel is quite...

British physicist Stephen Hawking has confirmed that he will not be attending the Presidential Conference in Israel because he is joining an academic boycott of the Jewish state. The University of Cambridge released a statement late Wednesday saying that Hawking had told the Israelis last week that he would not be attending "based on advice from Palestinian academics that he should respect the boycott." Earlier, the university said that news reports saying Hawking was boycotting the conference were wrong, and that the noted physicist's decision to cancel his visit to Israel stemmed from health reasons alone. .....

The academic boycott of Israel organized by the BDS movement claimed a big success when the Guardian ran an article yesterday, Stephen Hawking joins academic boycott of Israel. That report set off a furious response, since the academic boycott of Israel is anathema to almost all academics. In the U.S., only the disreputable actions of the Association of Asian American Studies, led by U. Mass-Boston Professor and Associate Provost Rajini Srikanth, have given any legitimacy to the boycott. The boycott, which singles out only Israel, attracts open and de facto anti-Semites and those in the leftist-Islamist coalition who seek Israel’s...

A British professor was caught red handed with Israeli products after calling for a boycott against Israel, according to a statement released by an International human rights organization. "Hawking's decision to join the boycott of Israel is quite hypocritical for an individual who prides himself on his own intellectual accomplishment. His whole computer-based communication system runs on a chip designed by Israel's Intel team. I suggest that if he truly wants to pull out of Israel he should also pull out his Intel Core i7 from his tablet" – this according to Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, director of Shurat HaDin – Israel...

Professor Stephen Hawking is backing the academic boycott of Israel by pulling out of a conference hosted by Israeli president Shimon Peres in Jerusalem as a protest at Israel's treatment of Palestinians. Hawking, 71, the world-renowned theoretical physicist and former Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, had accepted an invitation to headline the fifth annual president's conference, Facing Tomorrow, in June, which features major international personalities, attracts thousands of participants and this year will celebrate Peres's 90th birthday. Hawking is in very poor health, but last week he wrote a brief letter to the Israeli president to...