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Hawking says humans close to finding answers to origin of universe
Breitbart.com ^ | Jun 15 8:15 AM | Unknown

Posted on 06/15/2006 6:41:00 AM PDT by edpc

Acclaimed British physicist Stephen Hawking has said that humanity is finally getting close to understanding the origin of the universe.

Speaking at a lecture in Hong Kong, Hawking said that despite some theoretical advances in the past years, there are still mysteries as to how the universe began.

"Despite having had some great successes, not everything is solved. We do not yet have good theoretical understanding of the observation of the expansion of the universe," he told an audience of 2,500 at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Thursday.

"Without such understanding, we cannot be sure of the future of the universe.

"New observational results and theoretical advances are coming in rapidly; cosmology is a very exciting subject. We are getting close to answering these old questions: why are we here, where did we come from?"

The 64-year-old also said his unfulfilled ambitions, among many, were to find out what happens inside black holes, how the universe began and how the human race can survive in the next 100 years.

Above all, he joked, he wants to understand women.

On Tuesday Hawking said the human race should reach for the stars to survive as the Earth is at risk of being wiped out by a disaster.

He believes humans should settle in space, predicting a lunar settlement within 20 years and a Martian colony in 40.

Hawking, a Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, speaks with a voice synthesiser and has been in a wheelchair since developing motor neurone disease.

During his Hong Kong visit he also revealed he is writing a children's book with his daughter about theoretical physics.

Hawking is the author of international best seller "A Brief History of Time", which attempted to explain a range of subjects in cosmology, including the Big Bang, black holes, light cones and superstring theory.

He is on a six-day visit to Hong Kong and will meet Chief Executive Donald Tsang Friday before heading to Beijing Saturday where he will give a lecture on string theory.


TOPICS: Miscellaneous; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: bigbang; crevolist; hawking; origins; science; space
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To: HOTTIEBOY
Regardless of anyones beliefs, Hawkins remains just about the smartest man on the planet.

And his taste in nurses is above reproach.


61 posted on 06/15/2006 9:50:50 AM PDT by operation clinton cleanup
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To: Star Traveler

You seem pretty good with quoting scripture, could you tell us what God and Jesus have said about being self-righteous?


62 posted on 06/15/2006 9:52:18 AM PDT by BJClinton (There's plenty of room for all God's creatures, right next to the mashed potatoes.)
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To: shalom aleichem

Carl Sagan was a TOOL of the scientific establishment.


63 posted on 06/15/2006 9:52:40 AM PDT by MrCruncher
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To: shalom aleichem

Hawking admits that he was dead wrong about "black holes."

Why should I give a blank what he has to say about anything else?


64 posted on 06/15/2006 9:53:56 AM PDT by MrCruncher
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To: shalom aleichem

Hawking and Carl Sagan in the same sentence.

That hurt.

I don't think much of Hawking, but he deserves better than to be equated with media phony Carl Sagan.


65 posted on 06/15/2006 9:55:26 AM PDT by MrCruncher
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To: hail to the chief

Isaac Asimov was a hard working stooge for the scientific establishment.

Next somebody is going to put forward the Amazing Randi as their scientific "authority."


66 posted on 06/15/2006 9:57:42 AM PDT by MrCruncher
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To: edpc
Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Modern Physics and Ancient Faith. Often invoked as justification for unbelief, in this book modern science provides the basis for an unusual and provocative affirmation of religious faith. A professor of theoretical particle physics at the University of Delaware, Stephen Barr deploys his scientific expertise to challenge the dogmas of naturalistic materialism and to assert his belief that nothing explains the order of the universe better than divine design. To be sure, Barr recognizes that Darwin's work has swept away the arguments of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century theologians, who traced the handiwork of God in birds, flowers, and seashells. But the old argument-from-design reemerges with new sophistication after Barr presses evolutionary theory for a plausible account of the origin of what quantum physics demands – that is, a conscious observer – and comes away with nothing but skepticism about the skeptics. Barr indeed relishes the irony of a skeptical logic of random chance that forces unbelievers who balk at one unobservable God to accept, on doctrinal faith, a myriad of unobservable worlds on which the matter-motion lottery has not produced the winning ticket of conscious intelligence. The absurdity grows even more palpable among astrophysicists who avoid acknowledging the human-friendly pattern in subatomic and cosmic architecture found in the observable universe only by theorizing the existence of an infinite number of unobservable universes in which sovereign randomness has dictated other and more hostile architectures. Neither religiously sectarian nor technically daunting, this book invites the widest range of readers to ponder the deepest kind of questions.

67 posted on 06/15/2006 10:00:21 AM PDT by Kenny Bunkport (Left's reaction to "GODLESS": "They haven't hated a book this much since the Bible." (pissant))
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To: Star Traveler

What makes your theories posted here any more or less whacko than Hawkings?


68 posted on 06/15/2006 10:00:28 AM PDT by Toby06 (True conservatives vote based on their values, not for parties.)
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To: SaveUS

You said -- "No it doesn't."

Spoken exactly in the words of the "fool" of the Bible...

Regards,
Star Traveler


69 posted on 06/15/2006 10:01:09 AM PDT by Star Traveler
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To: HOTTIEBOY

You said -- "If I want to read scripture, I'll go to the religion sidebar or pick up a bible."

I'll quote it any time I want.

You have the freedom to not read it. It's just as valid a quote as anything from any other so-called expert in this world. In fact, it's more relevent.

Your choice...

Regards,
Star Traveler


70 posted on 06/15/2006 10:03:16 AM PDT by Star Traveler
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To: Just another Joe
Agreed. It's right in front of our collective noses (but some refuse to see it).

And haven't we been *close* to a unified theory of physics which will explain all for like the last 30 years?

71 posted on 06/15/2006 10:03:30 AM PDT by Kenny Bunkport (Left's reaction to "GODLESS": "They haven't hated a book this much since the Bible." (pissant))
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To: edpc
Above all, he joked, he wants to understand women.

A better sense of humor that most of the professors I've worked with...
but if I were in his physical shape, I'd need some humor to keep going.
72 posted on 06/15/2006 10:06:17 AM PDT by VOA
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To: Star Traveler

Can't you religious types leave a science thread alone without spamming it with biblical quotes?


73 posted on 06/15/2006 10:08:19 AM PDT by -YYZ-
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To: MrCruncher

Why should I (or anyone else) give a crap what you think about him? He's a theorist, and sometimes even theories that are wrong help to advance science. At least he had the honesty to admit that he believes he was wrong.


74 posted on 06/15/2006 10:12:54 AM PDT by -YYZ-
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To: BJClinton

You said -- "You seem pretty good with quoting scripture, could you tell us what God and Jesus have said about being self-righteous?"

And you would have the Bible sitting in a dust-filled box somewhere -- and not spoken in the "public market".

I thought that was the mantra of the liberal left -- "keep your Bible behind closed church doors." Don't say anything in public about it -- God forbid...

Sorry, that's not what the Bible says.

Regards,
Star Traveler


75 posted on 06/15/2006 10:13:39 AM PDT by Star Traveler
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To: Toby06

You said -- "What makes your theories posted here any more or less whacko than Hawkings?"

I don't have any theories.

God, on the other hand, simply *states* what He has done, and what He has provided through His Son, Jesus Christ. No theories there, either, since it's straight from the source.

Your choice...

Regards,
Star Traveler


76 posted on 06/15/2006 10:15:53 AM PDT by Star Traveler
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To: -YYZ-

At least he had the honesty to admit that he believes he was wrong.

Yes he does.

But decades after those who disagreed with him had their careers destroyed.


77 posted on 06/15/2006 10:17:00 AM PDT by MrCruncher
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To: -YYZ-
YOU ARE DARK SIDED!!!!
78 posted on 06/15/2006 10:18:36 AM PDT by Feiny (Now go bang your heads on your desks until something useful comes out!)
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To: -YYZ-

You said -- "Can't you religious types leave a science thread alone without spamming it with biblical quotes?"

And can't you atheist types avoid *spamming our lives and living existence* with anti-God quotes and statements?

I guess not... from what I see around me...

Regards,
Star Traveler


79 posted on 06/15/2006 10:21:51 AM PDT by Star Traveler
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To: Sensei Ern
Don't get me wrong, Fighting Irish has the right to be offensive, but I have the right to call him/her on it.

Of course you have the right to call me on anything you find offensive ..... and I'm not so thinned skin to be bugged by that. I'll admit the shrivelled crip nomenclature was perhaps, over the top, but take my post at face value. I feel it is rediculous anyone sit at the feet of Hawking awaiting his next groan.

80 posted on 06/15/2006 10:21:56 AM PDT by Fighting Irish (1Crown + 3Nails = 4Given)
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