Stephen Hawking Turns 71

[Guest thaiworthy]

Jordan Hoffman writes that Hawking turned 70 yesterday, according to this article he wrote in celebration of his birthday. The article is dated yesterday and is hosted on the Star Trek site. Hawking was born January 8, 1942, so that makes him 71, at least according to Wikipedia and Hawking's own website. Maybe the article is a year old and the date automatically refreshed without reference to the headline, not sure.

 

Nevertheless, Hawking has been one of my favorite science personalities ever since I saw the series Cosmos with Carl Sagan. We he died, I was heartbroken. Sagan could explain the mysteries of the universe with illustrations and examples which thoroughy explained everything. Hawking is not so crystal clear to laymen, but there are things I know now that I didn't know before. He picked up where Carl left off. Carl's contribution to science fiction comes from the movie Contact, a 1997 American science fiction drama film adapted from the Carl Sagan novel of the same name and directed by Robert Zemeckis.
 

This article offers no particular creative insights, but is rather a short compendium of accomplshments most likely taken from public resources. I was hoping for more from a Trekie perspective, but at least it shows some reverence.

http://www.startrek.com/article/one-trek-mind-57-stephen-hawking-turns-70

 

Given the age discrepancy and narrow perspective, the article does bring to light that fact can follow fiction, as well as the reverse. To me, it's kind like which came first, the chicken or the egg? Even if you are not a Star Trek fan, you cannot deny that Gene Roddenberry's brainchild has produced some striking influences on today's space technology and terminology. His influence was ordained by the fact that Hawking was the first to set forth a cosmology explained by a union of the general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics. He is a vocal supporter of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.

 

Hawking also subscribes to an interpretation of quantum mechanics known as the “many world theories,” which states, basically, that the Worf-based TNG episode “Parallels” is true. Somewhere out there – and not just theoretical, but really out there – there exists a version of yourself that had the guts to ask Amanda Stein to the prom. So don't feel so bad.

There is a remarkable BBC production named Hawking that portrays his early life and one that I recommend seeing. One of the most incredible things about Hawking is that he is striken with Lou Gehrig's disease and most people die within 10 years of the diagnosis. Hawking has survived with it for nearly 5 decades!

I have included the Wiki article as well:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Hawking

Happy Birthday, Mr. Hawking! Many more to come!

[Bob]

The man thinks at levels most of us are incapable of even partially understanding.  I've read his one book "A Short History of Time" several times and, although I think I'm able to understand a bit more of it each time I read it, I'd guess that my comprehension is probably far less than half.  Simply (well, perhaps using that word in attempting to describe Stephen Hawking is very inappropriate) an amazing man. 

[Guest fountainhall]

I've tried to read the "Short History of Time" but much of it still defeats me. I remain baffled by the basic premise of the Big Bang. If our universe was created in milli-seconds and expanded outwards at an unbelievable rate - and is still expanding, I understand - into what did it expand! What was there before the Big Bang. A vast emptiness? That's what I can't get my head around! 

[Guest thaiworthy]

What was there before the Big Bang. A vast emptiness? That's what I can't get my head around!

 

It's like my childhood Catechism lessons, when we were first acquainted with the Biblical origin of the universe. In the beginning, there was nothing . . . As a child you accept nothing at face value, not really understanding what it implies. The nuns and priests did their best at explaining it scientifically then, saying that even though they preach the universe was created in 7 days, no one can really say how long each day really was. A year is based on a trip around the sun and at that time, where are the planets and the suns? There wasn't even a Jovianmoon back then! Simple enough for a child to understand, so I was relieved.

 

But the concept of nothing is incomprehensible, especially now as an adult. I tend to think of it another way so my brain has some rational way of dealing with it. It's as if to say there is no beginning or end, that everything is a continous loop or infinite circle. So nothing is essentially something on a level of existence that we've never seen before. And maybe when this universe ends in billions of years, the cycle will start all over again.

 

I'm sure some scientist or philosopher has come up with that theory already, it may even be Hawking himself in an obscure way. If I didn't have my own belief system of what these things may be, I'd go crazy. I must have learned it somewhere and it is easier to understand. It may be horribly wrong, but then ignorance is bliss. At least I am finally spared contemplating the existence of nothingness anymore.

[Rogie]

The human brain is the most wonderful creation in the known universe, I read recently, maybe even on this forum. By brain I mean the mind - consciousness.

 

Maybe that explains our fascination with robots, artifical intelligence, alien civilisations; it's almost as if Hawking's disembodied voice comes from another planet. I mean that nicely, not in the derogatory sense.

 

Even in patients deemed to be in a vegetative state and reckoned by doctors to be 'brain dead', it has been shown in some cases their brains are not dead at all and remain capable of intelligent thought. Medical science is struggling to fathom the intricate organ that is the human brain. It's making progress but there's so much more in the 'in tray' - dementia such as Alzeimer's, and many psychiatric problems come to mind. Just as a balanced mind is a work of art, an unbalanced one is potentially dangerous.

 

But even our balanced minds cannot make sense of everything. Some say the brain has been designed to have limits beyond which it cannot understand. That's how I as a Christian would put it. Others may substitute the word evolved for designed, which holds out the prospect for mankind that future generations will be more 'intelligent'. Hawking's is probably at or near the upper limits of human understanding. History records people with flashes of insight, those Eureka moments, but nobody can be unremittingly brilliant in every mode of thought and action all the time. That makes sense because as we know only too well if you over tax those little gray cells beyond a certain point it can be very exhausting. I sometimes have to mutter to myself "brain power" absentmindedly knocking my head with my knuckle, but those lucid moments are few and far between for me nowadays!

 

Now I shall turn my attention to the many-worlds theory. I wonder if that is the same as parallel universes. I hope to find out . . .

[Bob]

If our universe was created in milli-seconds and expanded outwards at an unbelievable rate - and is still expanding, I understand - into what did it expand! What was there before the Big Bang. A vast emptiness?

 

I really don't have a problem understanding the expansion as it's been easily proven and I also don't have a logical problem with what the expansion occurred "into."  By definition, something expanded into nothing (where previously there was nothing) and that sorta makes sense.

 

But.....given my pea brain can't get away from basic cause and effect, what I can't get any of my axions around is the notion that there was "nothing" before the big bang.  I mean, my god/buddha, something had to be there to "bang" and I can't see something being created out of nothing.  So, to me, the real issue is what was it that created the big bang.  Given I have no logical answer to that, I call it "god"  (meaning only that I have zero knowledge of who/what did it and not that I believe some other "being" of any nature did it.....as then I'd have to ask who created that "being"). 

[Guest timmberty]

whos to say it wasnt always there ??

no one knows what happened 50 billion years ago.

as for trying to follow a 'short history of time'

im still struggling to read a whole post by FH

[Guest fountainhall]

im still struggling to read a whole post by FH

 

Do tell me which one. I will have someone translate or condense it. Michael is usually quite good at that 

[Guest thaiworthy]

Do tell me which one. I will have someone translate or condense it. Michael is usually quite good at that 

 

Actually FH, none of them would fit such a description. I think tim is confusing you with me. I write long posts. I'm thinking of condensing mine as you suggest. If I take out every other word, it will still make sense. I think that's what Pong does and it works for him.

[Guest fountainhall]

Why not emasculate your grammar and punctuation at the same time, and you will soon be as erudite as Heygay? 

 

Oops, mustn't speak badly of the departed.

[Guest tdperhs]

Fascinating discussion.

 

Re: Bob

"But.....given my pea brain can't get away from basic cause and effect, what I can't get any of my axions around is the notion that there was "nothing" before the big bang. "

 

The major difficulty of the "Big Bang" is the inability of the human brain to fully accept the concept of  infinity.  The Big Bang depends on the theory of infinite contraction/expansion. The universe expands out to the limits that the Big Bang energy drives it. But that expansion energy, or energy of motion, is constantly struggling against the gravity of all the particles that are trying to pull it together. In that struggle energy gets disspated.

An example is the earth's orbit around the sun. The energy, which is trying to cause the earth to escape the orbit and fly off into space, is losing the battle to the mutual gravities of the earth and sun. Energy, a function of motion and change,  is being dissipated in that battle. But gravity is  a function of mass. Since there is no relative change in mass in either body, the gravity is nearly constant and overcomes the reduction in energy, which is why our annual orbit is reduced until one day we will crash into the sun. (Note: that will be a few billion years after I am dead, but it still bothers me. Weird, huh?) This reduction is non-linear so the rate of collapse increases as time goes by.

Once the universe expands to the point where its energy of motion equals its universal gravity, gravity will be increasing in relation to the remaining energy and the universe will begin to collapse back into itself until its mass is about the size of a football (International, not U.S.) The motion of the collapsing universe causes a new energy to develop. This energy continues to increase logarithmically as everything comes together, eventually erasing all space in between all particles of matter. There is no space between electrons and neutrons, for example. This energy - in a very small space - for about a trillionth of a nanosecond - now becomes so massive that it causes another explosion or "Big Bang" and the whole process begins again.

If this helps your understanding, I am about to screw it up for you.

Human thinking is usually limited to experience. Science follows survival. Human experience dictated that every event has a beginning and an end. Christian catechisms teach that only God had no beginning. This is an explanation needed to simplify the origins of human existence and to perpetuate the existence and power of  certain otherwise redundant socio-political organizations (my opinion). So the reality of infinity being alien to our experience is alien to our ability to perceive. However, the universe does not exist as a function of human experience. It exists per se and ad infinitum, contracting and expanding. Nietsche turned it into a philosphical premise declaring that, as the universe recycles, our existence recycles so that we will relive our lives exactly as we live them now, over and over again. Of course you may have to wait  few million millenia between existence (unless, of course, the universe transitions on Thai Time).

Essentially, this is how I understand the Big Bang Theory. What happened before the most recent Big Bang was another Big Bang cycle, and another before that, and another before that...etc.

In short, that that is, is; that that was; was. That that is is not that that was; and that that was is not that that was not.

[Guest fountainhall]

Does that that that that that refers to . . . . (sorry, couldn't resist that!) 

 

Brilliant post!     I have learned more about the universe in the moments I took to read it than in all of the rest of my time on this planet - my present incarnation, that is! You have steered my thinking into a completely new direction, one that I am now keen to explore more.

[Guest thaiworthy]

Energy, a function of motion and change,  is being dissipated in that battle. But gravity is  a function of mass. Since there is no relative change in mass in either body, the gravity is nearly constant and overcomes the reduction in energy, which is why our annual orbit is reduced until one day we will crash into the sun. (Note: that will be a few billion years after I am dead, but it still bothers me. Weird, huh?)

I kinda knew most of what you said in your post, but could you clarify the above? I love science programs and they all state that the earth is middle-aged and in a few billion years will run out of fuel and expand, swallowing up the inner plants and most likely Earth. Will this happen before the annual orbit decays? If so, isn't it a moot point? I haven't heard nearly as much about the latter as I have about the former.

 

Either way, it won't much matter. Several billion years is a very long time. We will either be dead as a civilization or have long since transplanted ourselves elsewhere.

[kokopelli]

Fascinating discussion.

 

The Big Bang depends on the theory of infinite contraction/expansion....

 

 

An example is the earth's orbit around the sun. The energy, which is trying to cause the earth to escape the orbit and fly off into space, is losing the battle to the mutual gravities of the earth and sun. Energy, a function of motion and change,  is being dissipated in that battle. But gravity is  a function of mass. Since there is no relative change in mass in either body, the gravity is nearly constant and overcomes the reduction in energy, which is why our annual orbit is reduced until one day we will crash into the sun. ...

Do you have sources for these statements?

 

The latest thinking is that the Universe is expanding at an accelerated rate and that, likely, it will not contract but expand forever likely due to dark energy and dark matter.

 

The Sun indeed loses mass every day through radiation of energy and high energy particles and thus its gravity is decreasing. Result will be the Earth will move further from the Sun.

In addition there are other forces in play involving conservation of rotational energy and angular momentum which further argue that the Earth is moving away from the Sun as is the Moon moving away from the Earth.

[kokopelli]

For those of you who want to know more about the Big Bang Theory you must watch a sitcom on American TV entitled the Big Bang Theory. This series involves four Physics Geeks and their misadventures. The biggest geek is Dr. Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons who is gay) and Stephen Hawking did make a guest appearance on this show.

[Guest thaiworthy]

In addition there are other forces in play involving conservation of rotational energy and angular momentum which further argue that the Earth is moving away from the Sun as is the Moon moving away from the Earth.

 

Now this is making sense. Good work, Koko! I knew the Moon was moving further away from the Earth, and at the rate of about 1.6 inches per year. This article fills in a lot of gaps in our discussion, but poses a lot of IFs, ANDs and BUTs.

 

What may have been true yesterday may not be true today. Discoveries are changing the explanations that fast. I thought I'd heard some while ago that the moon was supposed to escape earth's grasp altogether and sail away into the cosmic void, someday. So much for that theory, too.

 

According to this article, once you factor in the swelling Sun, then everything changes, the Moon starts to decay its orbit and begins to move closer because of density and temperature increases of the future red giant Sun. As it approaches 11,470 miles above us, that's when this fun begins.

 

Also, there are other possible alternatives to these scenarios:

 

If the Sun as a red giant sloughs off enough material before Earth evaporates, our planet will be revealed from its stellar cocoon in a Moon-less guise. Earth,  robbed of its companion, would undertake a lonely vigil as the Sun turns eventually into a stellar corpse called a white dwarf, fading to black over the ensuing trillions of years.

Alternatively, if the swelling Sun loses 20 percent of its mass prior to it reaching our vicinity, both Earth and Moon could be spared incineration and remain together facing each other for eternity. The actual outcome remains a theoretical uncertainty because no red giant star has been observed during this crucial phase.

 

http://www.space.com/3373-earth-moon-destined-disintegrate.html

[Guest timmberty]

Do tell me which one. I will have someone translate or condense it. Michael is usually quite good at that 

all of em ... well apart from this one

[Guest timmberty]

tdperhs ive no idea what you are going on about ... then you mentioned god and it got even less belivable ... science can be a wonderus thing .. but do tell me what is the point of finding planets that will take 30 billion light years to get to ??

id call it a waste of money .. but then im not clevererer like what you was/is/are.

[kokopelli]

In an earlier post I included  a quote by Stephan Hawking doing a guest appearance on the Big Bang Theory is response to the physics geek, Dr Sheldon Cooper; it was only meant to show Dr. Hawking's sense of humor.

 

Here is a much more serious quote:

 

"The human race is just a chemical scum on a moderate-sized planet, orbiting around a very average star in the outer suburb of one among a hundred billion galaxies. We are so insignificant that I can't believe the whole universe exists for our benefit. That would be like saying that you would disappear if I closed my eyes."

-- Stephen Hawking in "Reality on the Rocks" TV serie

[Rogie]

What is the Reality on the Rocks TV series, Koko?

 

Is it another sitcom or is it a 'proper' science series. I cannot comment on that 'more serious' Hawking quote without knowing if he really said that or if it was just some scriptwriter putting words into his mouth.

[kokopelli]

Rogie; I never saw this show; it is a UK production and apparently a documentary style proper science series although in an odd fashion by the narrator, Ken Campbell. And as far as I know a real quote by Dr. Hawking and not a script write as was in the Big Bang Theory which has nothing to do with science.

[Rogie]

Thanks for clarifying that Koko.

 

As Hawking is the subject of this thread, it's seems quite reasonable to hear what he has to say.

 

Far be it for me to argue with him, after all . . . he could be right!

[Guest timmberty]

What is the Reality on the Rocks TV series, Koko?

 

Is it another sitcom or is it a 'proper' science series. I cannot comment on that 'more serious' Hawking quote without knowing if he really said that or if it was just some scriptwriter putting words into his mouth.

im not sure you worded that to well rogie ...

words put into his machine might be more betterer.

[Rogie]

Yes fair point Timmberty!

 

Obviously he can hear another person's voice and presumably the computer controling his 'voice-box' can convert whatever dials he tweaks into sound every time he replies to a question.

 

Perhaps in an earlier computer age words would need to be 'put into his machine' rather like using a punch card was needed to feed the computer with its instructions.

[Guest Jovianmoon]

This is the first time I've ever ventured outside the main 'Gay Thailand' forum, even to lurk. But tonight I was looking over the posts and I couldn't resist a post on Hawking. Cheers Fountainhall.

 

But the concept of nothing is incomprehensible...I tend to think of it another way so my brain has some rational way of dealing with it. It's as if to say there is no beginning or end, that everything is a continous loop or infinite circle. So nothing is essentially something on a level of existence that we've never seen before. And maybe when this universe ends in billions of years, the cycle will start all over again.

 

That's all good reasoning, but even if in our own universe there is conceivably a beginning and an end without a continuous loop (open universe versus closed universe hypotheses - see below), that doesn't create a conceptual problem. The key is understanding the relationship between space and time, as might be gained from a conceptual understanding of Einstein's theories of relativity (which I wouldn't pretend to understand at the mathematical level). They are one and inextricable - space cannot exist without time and vicky versa because the measurement of time must ultimately be the movement of particles (or people, trains, cats or sharks - whichever you wish) in space or here on Earth. What I mean is, you cannot have space without time or time without space, so it is no use asking what existed before space or what will exist after it, because without space there is no 'before' and there is no 'after'. That applies within our own universe (and any universe), but it does not preclude continuous existence in the form of brane universes (see below again).

 

...where are the planets and the suns? There wasn't even a Jovianmoon back then!

 

Thanks for the nod there, Thaiworthy! 

 

In my negative self-talk I might imagine someone posting "Remember the good old days of the forum a couple of years ago? There wasn't even a Jovianmoon back then." No, no. Nobody would ever say such a thing, surely? 

 

Fascinating discussion...

 

Your cyclical universe explanation (the closed universe - endless expansion and contraction) is great, but I remember reading a number of years ago that of the two models - the open universe, which keeps expanding forever and eventually suffers a 'heat death', and the closed universe, which eventually begins contracting again to collapse in on itself and generate another Big Bang - the open universe wins. This is because based on the predicted total mass of the universe versus the rate of expansion, there is insufficient mass to generate another collapse. The corollary is a universe that goes on expanding until it burns itself out - heat death. I was disappointed to read this, because the cyclical universe (closed universe) hypothesis made the most sense and completely dispensed with the need for some cause to the beginning of it all - it made more sense to me if it never actually began and will never end; it just goes on ad infinitum. Perhaps the cosmologists'/physicists' computations are wrong and therefore, so the hypothesis. But I have very good reason to believe that they have much better data, analytical skills and education than I have, so I'll take their word for it for now   

 

So where does that leave the 'from nothingness to nothingness' idea then? Well it's not all bad news, as it happens. There are other hypotheses such as the 'brane' hypothesis, which supposes that there have been many universes generated by big bangs, and that these exist parallel to us (and are still being generated - I'm sure we've all come across parallel universes in our SF meanderings), and that they are 'sparked' by existing brane universes. So in a sense it is an alternative cyclical universe (closed universe) hypothesis, in that the heat death of our own universe does is not the be all and end all. Remember that scientists don't just make this stuff up as they go along (though it may seem that way to laymen like you and I), they have substantial data (admittedly mostly mathematical, with some experimental and observational data) to support their hypotheses.

 

...but do tell me what is the point of finding planets that will take 30 billion light years to get to ?? ...

 

A light year is a measurement of distance, not time. From memory it is 9,460 million kilometres (I know I may sound like a freak there, but this stuff has fascinated me since I was kid).

 

...id call it a waste of money...

 

The exploration of space is man's greatest adventure. And you can't put a price on that.

 

_______________________________

 

*My comments in this post are all based on memory without reference - I really couldn't be bothered checking my sources - sorry! Obviously, if memory has failed me, I'm willing to be corrected on any point.

 

Cheers!