Stephen Hawking: Abandon the Earth
Updated: Monday, 09 Aug 2010, 10:02 AM EDT
Published : Monday, 09 Aug 2010, 10:01 AM EDT
(CANVAS STAFF REPORTS) - Theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking has some advice for the people of Earth - it's time to get off.
"I believe that the long-term future of the human race must be in space," Hawking said to Big Think, a global forum that includes interviews with experts.
"It will be difficult enough to avoid disaster on planet Earth in the next hundred years, let alone the next thousand, or million. The human race shouldn't have all its eggs in one basket, or on one planet. Let's hope we can avoid dropping the basket until we have spread the load."
The physicist called humankind's survival "a question of touch and go" and referred to the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1963 as one time people narrowly avoided extinction. He also referred to the 22,600 stockpiled nuclear weapons, including 7,770 still operational, scattered around the planet.
If that doesn't drive us off, University of Sussex astrophysicist Dr. Robert Smith said global warming may reach a point "where all of Earth's water will simply evaporate." He said life will disappear on Earth long before the 7.6 billion years some say the aging sun will expand and destroy Earth.
CNet news said that Hawking has concerns about how humans "are eating up finite resources" and has claimed man's genetic code "carries selfish and aggressive instincts" that have helped humanity survive in the past.
Hawking suggests that if man can avoid disaster for the next two centuries "our species should be safe as we spread into space."
According to the Daily Mail , Hawking warned earlier this year that humans should be cautious in trying to contact other alien life forms because there is no way to know if they will be friendly.
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Read more here/Leia mais aqui: MY FOX
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NOTA IMPERTINENTE DESTE BLOGGER:
Gente, em um intervalo de aula do doutorado em História da Ciência na PUC-SP em 2009, o professor José Luis Goldfarb falou para os alunos que a ideia atual na cabeça dos cientistas é de como salvar a humanidade da extinção buscando novas fronteiras espaciais. Ouvi em silêncio, e, por razões estritamente científicas e tecnológicas, achei absurda esta 'tentativa' a la Arca de Noé de salvar a humanidade.
Bem, a declaração feita pelo professor da PUC-SP está bem mais respaldada agora com as declarações de Stephen Hawking.
Eu? Eu ainda continuo achando a ideia cada vez mais absurda, mesmo partindo de uma das mentes mais brilhantes.
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