[url]http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/space/article7107207.ece?[/url]
[release][img]http://www.timesonline.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00711/Hawkings385_711080a.jpg[/img]
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.”[/release]
Anyone else think he looks like the Illusive Man in that picture?
[img]http://i.imgur.com/jmMZZ.jpg[/img]
He's right, which is the sad part. We'll never get Alien contact...
[editline]12:46AM[/editline]
(or we will and we'll all be killed by them)
[quote]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.[/quote]
Sounds like the future for humanity doesnt it?
I think that there is life out there, but the distances are too great to be able to see them anytime soon.
[QUOTE=PrismatexV8;21543024]
Anyone else think he looks like the Illusive Man in that picture?[/QUOTE]
Someone chose the renegade option.
[QUOTE=PrismatexV8;21543024]
Anyone else think he looks like the Illusive Man in that picture?[/QUOTE]
pffffhahahaha oh you bastard
you're going to hell for that one, and me with you.
[QUOTE=Hunterbrute;21543068]Sounds like the future for humanity doesnt it?[/QUOTE]Sounds like Independence Day, really
Man I want to be an intergalactic hermit that would be so rad.
[quote]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.”[/quote]
I never thought about it like this. When the Columbian exchange happened, the introduction of new diseases and viruses to the native americans killed between 50% and 90% of their population. The same could happen if we come into contact with a new species without there being any kind of controls implemented.
[QUOTE=toxicpiano;21543313]I never thought about it like this. When the Columbian exchange happened, the introduction of new diseases and viruses to the native americans killed between 50% and 90% of their population. The same could happen if we come into contact with a new species without there being any kind of controls implemented.[/QUOTE]
It would work both ways. We would get their shit and they would get our shit.
[QUOTE=T2L_Goose;21543345]It would work both ways. We would get their shit and they would get our shit.[/QUOTE]
Unless they have nanobots instead of blood that defend against anything harmful.
[QUOTE=T2L_Goose;21543345]It would work both ways. We would get their shit and they would get our shit.[/QUOTE]
What if their shit was super-Ebola?
[QUOTE=Hunterbrute;21543371]Unless they have nanobots instead of blood that defend against anything harmful.[/QUOTE]
yeah well then maybe
maybe if they have little tiny robots in their fucking blood
then i guess we're completely fucked.
[QUOTE=T2L_Goose;21543417]yeah well then maybe
maybe if they have little tiny robots in their fucking blood
then i guess we're completely fucked.[/QUOTE]
Sounds perfectly reasonable, we also might be fucked if they know how to use magic spells cause only high level wizards know how to defend against that.
[QUOTE=PrismatexV8;21543374]What if their shit was super-Ebola?[/QUOTE]
Then they would get fucked up by our flu probably.
This is intergalactic shit we're talking about. Their biology would be completely different than ours. They could probably get fucked up by a common cold.
[editline]08:21AM[/editline]
[QUOTE=Hunterbrute;21543431]Sounds perfectly reasonable, we also might be fucked if they know how to use magic spells cause only high level wizards know how to defend against that.[/QUOTE]
not if you get your armor blessed at a temple stupid
As long as we have Will Smith we're fine
[QUOTE=T2L_Goose;21543432]
[editline]08:21AM[/editline]
not if you get your armor blessed at a temple stupid[/QUOTE]
Yeah or you could get this guy to save the Earth from the evil aliums.
[IMG]http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3485/4064636802_01677c4495_m.jpg[/IMG]
instant transmission technique
[QUOTE=T2L_Goose;21543470]instant transmission technique[/QUOTE]
I highly doubt those dirty aliens know how to go super saiyan 3 or pull off a successful Kamehameha blast.
[QUOTE=Hunterbrute;21543485]I highly doubt those dirty aliens know how to go super saiyan 3 or pull off a successful Kamehameha blast.[/QUOTE]
...what if they do
[QUOTE=Gummylamb;21543496]...what if they do[/QUOTE]
Well then we're fucked.
UNLESS HE GOES SUPER SAIYAN 4
[QUOTE=T2L_Goose;21543524]HEEYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
[img]http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs42/f/2009/060/2/8/289e02f211bf053dc493d63ec32e4c83.jpg[/img][/QUOTE]
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Iy8XZIU1HM[/media]
GOTTA GO 3 BRO GOTTA GO 3!!!!
Ya thats how you beat the aliens.
I can't wait for NASA's mission to Europa.
I bet the aliens still don't know why kids love Cinnamon Toast Crunch.
[QUOTE=Sub-Zero;21543552]I can't wait for NASA's mission to Europa.[/QUOTE]
It's either going to be like opening King Tut's tomb or Al Capone's vault.
[QUOTE=PrismatexV8;21543578]It's either going to be like opening King Tut's tomb or Al Capone's vault.[/QUOTE]
And you didnt say Pandora's box why?
[QUOTE=PrismatexV8;21543578]It's either going to be like opening King Tut's tomb or Al Capone's vault.[/QUOTE]
Or finding an empty ocean because the lack of oxygen :(
[QUOTE=Swebonny;21543589]Or finding an empty ocean because the lack of oxygen :([/QUOTE]
Lack of Oxygen in water, hmmmmmmmm
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