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Or at least, if he does know how to travel through time, he certainly is keeping tight lipped about it. He does have a good point though.
Link Via Geeks Are Sexy
Professor Stephen Hawking is looking for an assistant. Originally, the job was to be for a technician who can maintain and troubleshoot his computerized voice system -and that’s still the most important part of the job description.
An informal job ad posted to the famed physicist’s website said the assistant should be computer literate, ready to travel, and able to repair electronic devices “with no instruction manual or technical support.”
Hawking has long struggled against amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a disease which left him almost completely paralyzed.
He lost his real voice in a tracheotomy in 1985, but a wheelchair-mounted computer helps synthesize speech by interpreting the twitches of his face. The synthesizer’s robotic monotone has become nearly as famous as Hawking himself, but the computer — powered by batteries fastened to the back of Hawking’s wheelchair — isn’t just for speaking.
It can connect to the Internet over cell phone networks and a universal infrared remote enables the physicist to switch on the lights, watch television, or open doors either at home or at the office.
The updated job description also says the assistant will help with travel arrangements, lecture preparations, and dealing with the press. Travel is required. The position is funded by the University of Cambridge. Link to story. Link to job description. -Thanks, Shaun!
In 1995, the now-defunct pop culture, music, and fashion magazine The Face asked physicist Stephen Hawking for a formula for time travel. Letters of Note has a photo of the fax that he sent in response. He probably just doesn’t want to share his secrets.
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Stephen Hawking recently gave a talk at Arizona State University, and Claudia Dreifus of The New York Times’s Science Times sat down with him for a brief yet fascinating interview about science and his life in general:
Q. Dr. Hawking, thank you so much for taking time to talk to Science Times. I’m wondering, what is a typical day like for you?
A. I get up early every morning and go to my office where I work with my colleagues and students at Cambridge University. Using e-mail, I can communicate with scientists all over the world.
Obviously, because of my disability, I need assistance. But I have always tried to overcome the limitations of my condition and lead as full a life as possible. I have traveled the world, from the Antarctic to zero gravity. (Pause.) Perhaps one day I will go into space.
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In The Daily Mail, Stephen Hawking writes that time travel may be possible. Since time and space are “wrinkled”, people might use these wrinkles as shortcuts in time:
Nothing is flat or solid. If you look closely enough at anything you’ll find holes and wrinkles in it. It’s a basic physical principle, and it even applies to time. Even something as smooth as a pool ball has tiny crevices, wrinkles and voids. Now it’s easy to show that this is true in the first three dimensions. But trust me, it’s also true of the fourth dimension. There are tiny crevices, wrinkles and voids in time. Down at the smallest of scales, smaller even than molecules, smaller than atoms, we get to a place called the quantum foam. This is where wormholes exist. Tiny tunnels or shortcuts through space and time constantly form, disappear, and reform within this quantum world. And they actually link two separate places and two different times. [...]
Given enough power and advanced technology, perhaps a giant wormhole could even be constructed in space. I’m not saying it can be done, but if it could be, it would be a truly remarkable device. One end could be here near Earth, and the other far, far away, near some distant planet.
Theoretically, a time tunnel or wormhole could do even more than take us to other planets. If both ends were in the same place, and separated by time instead of distance, a ship could fly in and come out still near Earth, but in the distant past. Maybe dinosaurs would witness the ship coming in for a landing.
Link via Geekologie | Image: NASA
Genius physicist Stephen Hawking thinks that it’s likely that there’s intelligent life in the universe beyond our solar system. And he advises that we should avoid contact with aliens:
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.”
Do you agree with his advice?
Link via Glenn Reynolds | Image: US Department of Health and Human Services
While people all over the world are marking the 75th anniversary of the birth of Elvis Presley, we would like to give a big shout out to a treasure who is still with us -University of Cambridge professor emeritus Stephen Hawking, who turns 68 years old today.
Born on the 300th anniversary of Galileo’s death, Hawking is a theoretical physicist who is regarded as one of the most intelligent men alive. He has published numerous papers and books on the nature and origin of the universe, the best known being A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes. Hawking also had a miniseries on PBS in 1997, Stephen Hawking’s Universe, as well as a long list of TV and movie appearances. He is renowned for making difficult concepts comprehensible to the average reader or viewer.
Hawking has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease, which has taken his ability to move or speak under his own power. He uses a speech synthesizer to communicate. Still, Hawking has been heard singing at least three times on Neatorama, in A Glorious Dawn, I Love the World, and in this lecture.
Among Hawking’s degrees, honors, and other accomplishments is the awesome fact that he is the only person ever to play himself in any Star Trek film or series.
Happy Birthday, Professor Hawking!
Forget rap, forget the news, THIS is what auto-tune was meant for! Carl Sagan sings his lovely prose about our wonderful universe with an appearance by Stephen Hawking. -via Geeks Are Sexy
