Posted on 10/23/2009 11:06:18 AM PDT by mnehring
Cambridge University has named the man who will succeed Professor Stephen Hawking in one of the world's most prestigious academic positions.
The celebrated physicist, who has motor neurone disease, completed his last day as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics on 30 September.
The university said Professor Michael Green had been elected as the 18th person to take up the position....
...The Lucasian Professorship was established in 1663 and previous holders have included Isaac Newton.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
Such a great and brilliant mind.
Nor Clinton. Another great American scholar.
I was wondering how long that would take.:->
He’s an atheist and wants everyone else to be too.
she was smokin'!
He isn’t going away, Hawking is moving on to a position as director research. He is a testament that disability can’t overcome the individual’s desire to succeed.
“He’s an atheist and wants everyone else to be too.”
That’s fine. What I wrote is still what I believe. The search for truth always leads to a better understanding of God (my personal opinion, obviously), irrespective of the religious/spiritual views of the person doing the search (as long as they are intellectually honest).
As an aside, it seems anti-intellectual to believe that everything exists for no reason.
He actually fell more into the agnostic, deist role. A famous quote by Hawking:
"the universe is governed by the laws of science. The laws may have been decreed by God, but God does not intervene to break the laws."
Ping #13
“He actually fell more into the agnostic....”
That’s more what I would have expected. The view that God does not intervene to break the laws is interesting, but all that we know is based at least in part in what we have been able to observe. Just because we haven’t seen instances in which the ‘Laws’ we’ve devised to explain observed phenomena don’t apply doesn’t mean that exceptions to these Laws don’t exist.
I am struggling to remember, but there was a quote in one of his books where he addressed what he believes or doesn’t. He said something on the lines of ‘I don’t know. God is the only concept, who by definition, exists beyond our ability to understand’.. that is a very rough paraphrase, but it seems to me he didn’t reject God but just said he doesn’t know.
That is a Christian belief I know going back at least to Aquinas. The Muzzies believe Allah can do anything he wants so there is no point in pursuing science and science by implying there are immutable universal laws is heresy because that somehow constrains Allah.
except when He does... i do like that quote...
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