Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Well, the sun is not going to enlarge to a red giant in the century that Hawking is talking about.
I believe, if you brought a 1900 physicist to the present in a time machine, and showed him the modern marvels, he would just nod his head and say, Yes, I can see how that works. Even miniaturized circuitry and nanotechnology, and perhaps nuclear fission. Even 1800 man would understand the internal combustion engine and heavier-than-air flight. Maybe the most astonishing miracle that has emerged in the past century is something very pedestrian that we all hate: Plastic.
Similarly, a 2010 man, visiting 2100, would find that nearly everything would make sense to his grasp of science. Do not expect the kinds of breakthroughs that we are unable to even imagine.
In fact, we might need to consider the possibility that we are approaching "peak science", a point at which the lifespan of a human being is not long enough to learn enough science to exceed a certain threshold. Another limiter could be the obstruction of scientific progress by a global tyrant who knows how easy it is to brainwash an entire population, with an instant universal communications system ready at hand. George W. Bush, AM radio and stem cell research comes to mind as a simplified illustration.
(I wrote that last paragraph before I saw the thread on Evolution--Biology, which it fits right in with.)
Your conclusion is short-sighted and forgetful of the "don't put all your eggs in one basket" philosophy. Space colonization will be needed as a safety net to ensure the survival of humanity.
You're assuming we have more than one basket. If we only have one basket, perhaps we should really take care of it, or at least harden parts of it.
Quote:
If the Sun enlarges to a Red Giant or an Asteroid the size of the North American continent finds its way to Earth it will be GAME OVER.
The Sun a Red Giant? You do realize you are referring to an event many billions of years in the future? By then I'm sure we'll come up with something. A continental-sized Asteroid? Hasn't happened since the earth was formed. Perhaps you're referring to one of the size that killed (?) the dinosaurs, a 15 km rock that last hit us 65 million years ago. Let's wait another million before worrying about that one. By the way, with proper surveillance we should have decades of warning against a small asteroid and, for a humanity-killing one, centuries. Of all the potential humanity-killing events, I think global nuclear war is by far the most likely. Could happen tomorrow by way of an accidental launch.
Quote:
Building underground shelters on Earth is equivalent to burying your head in the sand. It may seem impossible to travel to other worlds, even other galaxies, but that is because we only think with what's possible today.
Burying our heads in the sand is not a bad idea if one is worried about losing one's head. As far as traveling to other worlds/galaxies. The closest galaxy is a couple of million of light years away, so I think we can forget that. The closest stars in our galaxy are a few light years away, so I don't consider that a worthwile destination today or in the next century or two. Unless you are willing to undertake a journey of many generations that could somehow resupply themselves and protect against space hazards in the hopes that there just might be a suitable planet on those other stars. Think about the fuel supplies needed to visit potential planets.
Quote:
One hundred years ago no one knew about Pluto, the Internet, or lots of other things...
Interesting how they talk about this technology to save us. But our technological advances will probably be the end of us.
Earth is quite possably alone! Something special and alive out of millions of rocks and gases. Earth is a sanctuary in the universe of nothing and they are talking about leaving??
Lets talk about saving this truely unique place. Lets stop building stronger and stronger things that will kill us on accident!
Interesting how they talk about this technology to save us. But our technological advances will probably be the end of us.
Earth is quite possably alone! Something special and alive out of millions of rocks and gases. Earth is a sanctuary in the universe of nothing and they are talking about leaving??
Lets talk about saving this truely unique place. Lets stop building stronger and stronger things that will kill us on accident!
Agreed! We should build a gigantic, powerful, machine to protect us from ourselves. Something like this...
However, whatever the final design, it must be agreed that this machine will only be used for peaceful purposes when not busy saving us. Such as, turning coal into diamonds.
The real problem with Mars as far as terraformation goes is that no one is sure how to get its core reliquified to restart the planet's geological carbon cycle and generate some protection from radiation. Although the last may be less of a concern since we'll be living indoors for the foreseeable future on Mars anyways, and the geologic carbon cycle occurs over thousands of years anyways so we don't have to solve that right away. The big problem with colonization is that we don't yet know if mammals much less humans can successfully reproduce in Martian gravity. If fetuses can't develop in 0.3g we can work around that, but it does complicate things a lot. But aside from maybe putting some huge submarine colonies on some moons of the gas giants Mars is the best place in our solar system to colonize. It doesn't seem to have as much nitrogen as we want, but everything else is there (maybe the nitrogen too if we had enough boots on the ground to look for it). It certainly is not as hard of a task as some here seem to think though. You can head over to newmars.com if you want more information as most of the guys there are better versed in this stuff than I am.
I doubt hawking really said those idiotic statements. There's an infinitely better chance to save what we have here than find and reach something else in the next 500 years minimum, and that's taking into account exponential technological development.
See, we'd most likely have to learn terraforming, and that just isn't gonna happen soon. And when it does, we can do it to Earth, so I hope it's not hawking being this moronic, perhaps he has some kind of mental illness if this is legit.
Keep in mind the suns rays hitting the earth right now could solve all our energy problems if harnessed and directed properly. The way to disarm the nuclear threat is to spread true intelligence, and not what we see happening today - people becoming sheeple in order for the truly intelligent to squeeze some more coin from them.
The real problem with Mars as far as terraformation goes is that no one is sure how to get its core reliquified to restart the planet's geological carbon cycle and generate some protection from radiation. Although the last may be less of a concern since we'll be living indoors for the foreseeable future on Mars anyways, and the geologic carbon cycle occurs over thousands of years anyways so we don't have to solve that right away. The big problem with colonization is that we don't yet know if mammals much less humans can successfully reproduce in Martian gravity. If fetuses can't develop in 0.3g we can work around that, but it does complicate things a lot. But aside from maybe putting some huge submarine colonies on some moons of the gas giants Mars is the best place in our solar system to colonize. It doesn't seem to have as much nitrogen as we want, but everything else is there (maybe the nitrogen too if we had enough boots on the ground to look for it). It certainly is not as hard of a task as some here seem to think though. You can head over to newmars.com if you want more information as most of the guys there are better versed in this stuff than I am.
The carbon cycle, radiation, and low g are issues, but the immediate need, IMHO, would be to increase the atmospheric pressure to something that we can withstand without needing pressure suits. Mars' average atmospheric pressure is equivalent to that of earth's at 20 miles up. Everest is around 5 miles up, so imagine living at a height of four Everests. I just can't see humans living for the long term in pressurized huts, and having to don pressure suits to go around the block.
And, even if there was a way of liberating enough trapped gasses to increase pressure, keeping them is an issue because of Mars' low gravity and lack of a magnetic field to block to solar wind.
Back to the question of authenticity, it appears that Hawking really did say this. His voice synthesizer is unique, and it sounds like his voice, and he also expressed the same view in this Israeli TV interview, very briefly, at about the 2:40 mark.
How are we ever going to be able to do this unless they figure out how to go at the speed of light?
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
