Stephen Hawking on The Future

RalfM writes "As far as people worth listening to go, Stephen Hawking is right up there. Some newspapers are currently presenting a rare interview with him about the future. Points mentioned include Marylin Monroe, off-planet migration, DNA reprogramming, limits to human brain processing ("We can be quick-witted or very intelligent, but not both.") and more. "

Comments

Why he is so intelligent...

[Anonymous Coward]

"a man with a freakishly quick, brilliant and creative mind condemned forever to articulate his thoughts at the speed of an imbecile."

Perhaps this is why he's so smart. He's forced to think about what he says before he does it. Many of us are lead to knee jerk reactions :)

Running out of space by 2600

[Jon Abbott]

I did some math to check his claim of the earth being full by 2600, and it's quite funny -- the population density (following only the exponential condition that was given) would be one person per 0.78 m^2!

The formula I used is this:
((4*pi*(6371315)^2)*.3)/((6e9)*2^n), where n is the number of times the population doubles. The exponential condition given was that the population doubles each 40 years. I used 3:10 as the land to total area ratio.

-- Does Rain Man use the Autistic License for his software?

Random thoughts

[EricWright]

As I read through the article, I was hit by a flurry of mixed emotions.

One of the first things to hit me was that the author was trying to portray Dr. Hawking as an actual human being, as opposed to the "cybernetic being" his illness has forced him into. The reference to his image superimposed on a picture of Marilyn Monroe was a refreshing divergence from the usual portrayal of the man.

However, I was later offended by the author's apparent lack of patience. His comment about "a man...condemned forever to articulate his thoughts at the speed of an imbecile" made me wince. Here he is, one of a privileged few journalists with the opportunity to spend an afternoon with the greatest mind of the last 50 years, and he is focussing on the man's physical disabilities. I nearly stopped reading at that point.

I didn't, though. And later on, even though the author repeatedly referred to the duration of the pauses he "endured", I began to detect a shift in the author's attitude. For one, by the end of the article, he was focusing more and more on *what* Dr. Hawking had to say, and not the way in which it was said. The man can't help it if a computer has to vocalize his thoughts for him. Thankfully, this issue was deemphasized later on.

One the the high points of the article is that it touches on the guest appearances he has done on ST:TNG and The Simpsons. I find it interesting that he enjoys the satiric, biting wit of the Simpsons!

One point I want to make, that the author didn't, and may not even know, refers to the quote from David Schramm (yes, this is probably quite minor)... the author refers to Dr. Schramm in the present. Unfortunately, he passed away in a single-engine plane crash in December 1997.

All in all, I though the interview contained much information about his personal life that has not been addressed much in other articles. I just wish the author had not come across as a bit crass in the beginning. If I did not come from a physics background, and thus hold Dr. Hawking in the highest regard, I might not have read the article through to the end for that reason.

All this, of course, IMO. And yes, real news for nerds!

Eric

Why ask Hawking?

[Stephen]

I have to be careful here, because I work in the next building to him!

But I wonder why people feel it's useful to ask Prof. Hawking these type of questions. Of course he's phenomenally intelligent. But he's a theoretical physicist. Are his opinions on space travel, genetic engineering etc. really of more worth than any other highly intelligent non-expert's?

No, I fear that people only ask him because he's a celebrity. And I fear that he's mainly a celebrity because of his illness. But that's a whole nother rant...

Re:Why ask Hawking?

[Enoch Root]

Not that I'm for hero worship, and I agree that his illness has something to do with his celebrity. Let's face it: it's romantic to think of Hawking as a genius trapped in an imperfect body. It's the uber-geek analogy. A lot of people identify with it, and scientists first.

Now, I would hesitate to call Hawking a fraud because he's popular. I believe he's popular for a reason. During graduate studies in particle physics, I had the pleasure to go through nasty and complex peer-reviewed journals like Quantum Gravity and the eternal Physics Letter. I stumbled upon a few of Stephen Hawking's papers.

They're the real thing. The guys does have a knack for theoretical thinking, and many of his ideas are both controversial, somewhat useless, and fascinating. He's done a lot of theoretical work on black holes, as well, and in this field, he is considered a pioneer.

(One final exam question in a General Relativity class went like this: Given Hawking's Law, calculate the resulting maximal mass and angular momentum of two black holes of equal mass but opposite angular momentum. Fun!)

The journalists and the public are to blame, here. They're the ones who go see Hawking like he's got some sort of dedicated phone line with God. But that's what's the public perception of science inevitably is. You wouldn't believe the questions I get asked that have nothing to do with my field of expertise.

A Brief History of Time's goal was to entertain and make the public's mind bend around physics problems. As such, it was magnificently successful. Of course it ain't established astrophysical theory, and of course it contains controversial material. Anything that's ever been considered interesting in Science has been controversial. Heck, Newton's Theory of Gravitation is still considered controversial by some people.

I think this interview illustrates the perception of the media, and the usual response Hawking gives. His whole 'We haven't received visitors from the future' gig is old, but it makes people laugh and dream. He plays the celebrity gig, and usually he doesn't have anything much to say to people looking up to him like some sort of Homeric hero. But to discredit him as a scientist, and say he's anything but a brilliant one, is not understanding the man fully.

Yes, there are many other scientists alive who probably deserve Hawking's exposure, only for their ideas and their minds. But celebrity isn't just about minds. When Hawking and I speak of physics, the layman probably has no idea who says the most profound things, because it's all a blur to them. But Hawking is in a wheelchair and is an eccentric. And that, usually, means celebrity more than mastery of mathematics.