Stephen Hawking says V is going to happen

[Stoney Mason]

THE aliens are out there and Earth had better watch out, at least according to Stephen Hawking. He has suggested that extraterrestrials are almost certain to exist — but that instead of seeking them out, humanity should be doing all it that can to avoid any contact.

The suggestions come in a new documentary series in which Hawking, one of the world’s leading scientists, will set out his latest thinking on some of the universe’s greatest mysteries.

Alien life, he will suggest, is almost certain to exist in many other parts of the universe: not just in planets, but perhaps in the centre of stars or even floating in interplanetary space.

Hawking’s logic on aliens is, for him, unusually simple. The universe, he points out, has 100 billion galaxies, each containing hundreds of millions of stars. In such a big place, Earth is unlikely to be the only planet where life has evolved.

“To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational,” he said. “The real challenge is to work out what aliens might actually be like.”

The answer, he suggests, is that most of it will be the equivalent of microbes or simple animals — the sort of life that has dominated Earth for most of its history.

One scene in his documentary for the Discovery Channel shows herds of two-legged herbivores browsing on an alien cliff-face where they are picked off by flying, yellow lizard-like predators. Another shows glowing fluorescent aquatic animals forming vast shoals in the oceans thought to underlie the thick ice coating Europa, one of the moons of Jupiter.

Such scenes are speculative, but Hawking uses them to lead on to a serious point: that a few life forms could be intelligent and pose a threat. Hawking believes that contact with such a species could be devastating for humanity.

He suggests that aliens might simply raid Earth for its resources and then move on: “We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet. I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonise whatever planets they can reach.”

He concludes that trying to make contact with alien races is “a little too risky”. He said: “If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn’t turn out very well for the Native Americans.”

The completion of the documentary marks a triumph for Hawking, now 68, who is paralysed by motor neurone disease and has very limited powers of communication. The project took him and his producers three years, during which he insisted on rewriting large chunks of the script and checking the filming.

John Smithson, executive producer for Discovery, said: “He wanted to make a programme that was entertaining for a general audience as well as scientific and that’s a tough job, given the complexity of the ideas involved.”

Hawking has suggested the possibility of alien life before but his views have been clarified by a series of scientific breakthroughs, such as the discovery, since 1995, of more than 450 planets orbiting distant stars, showing that planets are a common phenomenon.

So far, all the new planets found have been far larger than Earth, but only because the telescopes used to detect them are not sensitive enough to detect Earth-sized bodies at such distances.

Another breakthrough is the discovery that life on Earth has proven able to colonise its most extreme environments. If life can survive and evolve there, scientists reason, then perhaps nowhere is out of bounds.

Hawking’s belief in aliens places him in good scientific company. In his recent Wonders of the Solar System BBC series, Professor Brian Cox backed the idea, too, suggesting Mars, Europa and Titan, a moon of Saturn, as likely places to look.

Similarly, Lord Rees, the astronomer royal, warned in a lecture earlier this year that aliens might prove to be beyond human understanding.

“I suspect there could be life and intelligence out there in forms we can’t conceive,” he said. “Just as a chimpanzee can’t understand quantum theory, it could be there are aspects of reality that are beyond the capacity of our brains.”

Stephen Hawking's Universe begins on the Discovery Channel on Sunday May 9 at 9pm

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/space/article7107207.ece



[youtube=560,345][/youtube]

[Phoenix Dark]

Aliens are the new white people? We're fucked

[Stoney Mason]

Fuck.

PD came up with a better thread title than I did.

 

[Cheebs]

Woah this is on tonight, can't believe I didn't know about it. Must set this up on the dvr. Stephen Hawking is awesome.

[Eel O'Brian]

[youtube=560,345]HpkmtweNQ-U[/youtube]

[Great Rumbler]

It's nice to see Discovery Channel getting some cool new shows this season.

[Disposable White Guy]

[Diunx]

BELIEVE.

[EmCeeGrammar]

We could always nuke ourselves out of spite.  I dunno, what does earth offer for strip mining you couldn't get on all the other planets though?  I guess we have lots of water but otherwise..

[brawndolicious]

We could always nuke ourselves out of spite.  I dunno, what does earth offer for strip mining you couldn't get on all the other planets though?  I guess we have lots of water but otherwise..

organic matter?  Like mass effect.

[Bocsius]

They'll just take the jobs we're too good for and the women we aren't.

[Cormacaroni]

The same math applies in reverse: The chances of aliens wanting THIS planet for its resources in a galaxy that has practically infinite resources are close to nil. Even if they have the tech to travel here, there are billions of places that are easier to get to.

Sure, it's a nice planet for certain types of life. But there are so many low-hanging fruit out there, why would they bother.

[Stoney Mason]

The same math applies in reverse: The chances of aliens wanting THIS planet for its resources in a galaxy that has practically infinite resources are close to nil. Even if they have the tech to travel here, there are billions of places that are easier to get to.

Sure, it's a nice planet for certain types of life. But there are so many low-hanging fruit out there, why would they bother.

You'll be singing another tune when your essence is providing battery power for some alien's ipod equivalent...

[Cormacaroni]

Well, I also take comfort in the fact that the bubble of electromagnetic energy that centers on Earth is expanding so fast and traveling so far that there is no realistic way to hide our presence in the galaxy anymore. So even assuming that the aliens are after us, we can't possibly hide from them. So why not be optimistic and think that they'd probably opt for easier pickings rather than metaphorically attempt to burgle the house that has the lights on?

[Stoney Mason]

Maybe we just taste too damn good to pass on!





On a serious note I have no clue. I suppose its equally as viable they would be enlightened as malevolent towards us. Or anything between those two polar extremes.

Which is why good sci-fi is so interesting.

[Cormacaroni]

The concept of being able to just land on another planet and start chewing on the inhabitants without an immune system customized to the local bacteria is kind of laughable, yes.

There is plenty of great sci-fi out there that assumes alien civilizations will be of benevolent character, but the big issue is the tech gap which would make it so easy for them to abuse us, no matter how good their intentions. Any civilization that a) finds us and b) can get to us across interstellar distances is automatically in the realm of magical sky-gods in comparison to us. If that is the case, it's almost impossible for a relationship with them not to be exploitative of us, simply because there is nothing we can offer in return. Anything we have that they want (our water, the meat on our bones), they can just take. They wouldn't even need to conquer us or even make their presence known to us, most likely.

[Stoney Mason]

It's sort of impossible to understand aliens since we have no conception of their history, their nature, their intentions, or their motivations.

What's probably more interesting and slightly more possible is to speculate on how alien contact would effect us humans since arguably we at least in a general sense know our history, our nature, our intentions, and our motivations.

[recursivelyenumerable]

I dunno, he is the world's leading expert on aliens.  I'd defer to him on this topic.

[Fresh Prince]

What would be interesting is how religious people would react.

[EmCeeGrammar]

What would be interesting is how religious people would react.

I'm sure they could fit revelations into it somehow, in other words they would go batshit crazy and start mass suiciding.

[Cormacaroni]

So all those formerly-vegetarian great white sharks prowling the ocean depths - I suppose it is our sin that has forced them to consume flesh...?

[brawndolicious]

Hawking's own opinion on god is that if there is one, it is impossible to prove or disprove a supernatural being as believed by most religions.

[Fresh Prince]

Yes that's true but it would be interesting on how 'books of faith' would be interpreted.

What I want to happen is Evangelion

[Phoenix Dark]

I sat through an hour long sermon about the Genesis gap theory and how God destroyed his first creation before starting over with Adam and stuff. The remnants of that old earth, and angels kicked out of heaven=UFOs 

And the universe isn't infinite, it's en-capsuled by a giant body of water that separates the physical realm from the heavens

[Cormacaroni]

It's all so clear to me now.

[EmCeeGrammar]

So what did those velociraptors use their razor sharp claws and teeth for?  Peeling potatoes?

[Himu]

I sat through an hour long sermon about the Genesis gap theory and how God destroyed his first creation before starting over with Adam and stuff. The remnants of that old earth, and angels kicked out of heaven=UFOs 

And the universe isn't infinite, it's en-capsuled by a giant body of water that separates the physical realm from the heavens

Huh? You sat through this?

[brawndolicious]

oh I'm sure he was dragged there.

[Veidt]

It's all so clear to me now.

(Image removed from quote.)

That's the shittiest bridge ever. How are you supposed to cross it, when the top of the cross, is blocking your path?

religion annihilated

[Himu]

[Raban]

Anyone here think we'll make contact in our lifetime?

Probably not.

[etiolate]

It's all so clear to me now.

(Image removed from quote.)

That's the shittiest bridge ever. How are you supposed to cross it, when the top of the cross, is blocking your path?

religion annihilated

That's just a railbar for the cripples 

[Veidt]

Why would god make them cripple in the first place?

[brawndolicious]

I think original crosses didn't have that top part though.

[Cormacaroni]

I suppose it was inevitable that we end up talking about dinosaurs eating fondue.

[brawndolicious]

As much as I repect Hawking, what makes him think a life form intelligent enough to create a vehicle to travel through galaxies would give a shit about earth?

I think he's saying that in the off-chance that they do even give a shit, it wouldn't be for good reasons.

[Stoney Mason]

As much as I repect Hawking, what makes him think a life form intelligent enough to create a vehicle to travel through galaxies would give a shit about earth?

I think he's saying that in the off-chance that they do even give a shit, it wouldn't be for good reasons.

This.

Basically their conception of us would potentially be like our conception of ants or even lower.

Just like Avatar bitches!

Cameron. 

[Cheebs]

Am I the only one who watched this last night? It was really good.  :'(

[Stoney Mason]

Am I the only one who watched this last night? It was really good.  :'(

I watched AVATAR last night which is the same thing and even better!

[Great Rumbler]

Am I the only one who watched this last night? It was really good.  :'(

It was on while I was at my computer, so I caught some of it. I agree, what I saw was pretty good, a nice change of pace from what's become the norm at Discovery.

I am a bit disappointed that they got a narrator for Stephen Hawking instead of just having his computer voice the whole time.

[Disposable White Guy]

Am I the only one who watched this last night? It was really good.  :'(

I am a bit disappointed that they got a narrator for Stephen Hawking instead of just having his computer voice the whole time.

What?!  No sale.

Discovery