The Hawking Window refers to the period of time from now until it's too late, at some future time, to save Humanity from itself or some natural disaster. About 100 to 200 years, according to Stephen Hawking.
Alan Boyle of Cosmic Log speaks of Stephen's latest speech on this subject here, which is a re-hashing of previous Hawking meditations on the same subject, but updated to 2010.
I'm on board, I think most people are. HOW we are to accomplish this in the face of global politics is beyond me, however. The sheer greed I'm witnessed here in the USA during my lifetime (I was born in 1956) seems to imply that if unchecked, we're going to suicide ourselves. And if so, wouldn't that be for the betterment of the Universe? Natural selection and all, and in this case a Cosmic one?
The altruist in me wishes however that we not give up before the fight begins, much like Clinton and Obama half-compromising before they sit down to talk with Republicans.
Most of the posters and repliers at Cosmic Log seem to favor Mars as the next logical step.
No, the Moon and Mercury should be next. They're closer, and unless you're willing to wait 800 years for Mars to be terraformed, they're not much less inhospitable. In space, closer = cheaper, and yes doing all this will be expensive. So what? That hasn't stopped people before.
The recent discovery of ice on the moon isn't all that great (we'll have to bring our own water for the first century or so, or extract it from our pee, and our animals' pee), but the discovery of caves on Luna is VERY important. Natural caves is how we started on Earth, and the costs saved by not digging a big hole ourselves will be significant.
And underground we shall have to go, at first. The reason is solar and cosmic radiation. Our atmosphere and strong magnetic field here on Earth protects us, spoils us really. In space there is no such protection, save for a whole bunch of rock above our heads.
We can do this, but first we must commit ourselves, and for that we'll need: real Leaders.
And other than Hawking, where are those, exactly?
Ralph Kramden was right. To the moon, Alice!
10 comments:
Steven,
I hope you don’t mind I was just testing if my comments are being blocked for some unknown reason by some new spam blocking component of blogger as a cpmment I attempted to placed on Backreation didn’t stay up.
Best,
Phil
I don't mind at all. I haven't had any trouble, but I haven't posted anything at BackReAction since yesterday a.m. I would suggest you save all work to Word before hitting the send button, in case Bee is suffering a glitch atm, and if she is I bet it will be worked out sooner than later.
Well Phil, my time at The Census That Never Ends is finally at an end, so I look forward to returning to your blog as well. Will post there later.
Well, I just posted there and it went through fine, so try again Phil.
Hi Steven,
Thanks it appears everything is working now. I was beginning to think that some way or other blogger was marking my posts as spam. That had me becoming more empathetic with the dolphins that get caught in the tuna nets. Anyway it’s nice to hear you have a little more time yet better still from the work perspective if you didn’t. It pains me when bright and decent persons as you find themselves in such circumstance.
Best,
Phil
pling
Hi Steven,
It appears I spoke to soon as when I attempted to post my original comment the same problem occurred again only this time it shows up on the recent post list yet if clicked is not found there. Perhaps there is something about it that the software considers as spam.
Best,
Phil
Hi Steven,
In my quest to understand the problem do you mind if I attempt to post the comment in question here to see if it’s rejected, I’m suspicious that this new spam filter software that blogger has set up may be indeed be like those tuna nets I spoke of. I apologize if this is bothersome it`s just when it comes to understanding and solving problems I`m like a dog with a bone:-)
Best,
Phil
I don't mind Phil. Post away.
Hi Steven,
Thanks for deeming it as okay for me to post that comment of mine here as an experiment to have me discover if it was interpreted as spam by Blogger’s new software. However as we’ve discovered the comments were returned a day after being rejected thus I don’t consider it as necessary and yet certainly weird. Thanks also for paying a visit to my own blog page and the posting you made was much appreciated. The fact is you are now getting up to what I consider the interesting posts with what you read before as sort of a preamble. I hope it continues to make sense and perhaps even resonates with you whenever you find time to continue and look forward to any further comments or discussion resultant of your reading.
Best,
Phil
Hi Steven,
I find it interesting that Hawking within the last few years has become so concerned about the future of mankind as before he was so self absorbed in only the problems of physics that he was grappling with. Therefore I don’t take his vision of concern for mankind very seriously as I find him more of the type of scientist that has taken his discipline too far in the direction where all the why questions simply don’t have a role to play in our understanding leaving only its predictive aspect to dominate.
“Roger Penrose and I worked together on the large-scale structure of space and time, including singularities and black holes. We pretty much agree on the classical theory of General Relativity but disagreements began to emerge when we got on to quantum gravity. We now have very different approaches to the world, physical and mental. Basically he is a Platonist believing that there’s a unique world of ideas that describes a unique physical reality. I, on the other hand, am a positivist who believes that physical theories are just mathematical model we construct, and that it is meaningless to ask if they correspond to reality; just whether they predict observation.”
-(criticism by Hawking of Penrose) Roger Penrose- The Large, The Small and the Human Mind (page 169)
Now in my opinion if you would like a better vision from which to make such assessment it would have come from the late Carl Sagan first whose assessment of the current state of humanity it was as follows and his reason for having hope following after that (both as taken from his book “Cosmos”).
“Civilization Type:1.0J.
Society Code: 4G4, "Humanity".
Star: G2V, r=9.844 kpc, 8=00o05'24".
Planet: third, a= 1.5 X 1013 cm. M=6X10^27g,R=6.4 X 10^3 cm, p=8.8 X 10^4 s, P=3.2 X 10^7
Extraplanetary colonies: none.
Planet age: 1.45x1017sec.
Receipt first galactic nested code: application pending.
Biology:C,N,O,H2O,PO4 Deoxyribonucleic acid. No genetic prosthesis. Mobile heterotrophs, symbionts with photosynthetic autotrophs. Surface dwellers,
monospecific, polychromatic Oxygen breathers.Fe-chelated tetrapyroles in circulatory fluid. Sexual mammals. m= 7 X 10^4 g, t=2 X 10^9 s
Genomes: 4 X 10^9
Technology: exponentiating/ fossil fuels/ nuclear weapons/ organized warfare/ environmental pollution.
Culture: about 200 nation states, about 6 global powers; cultural and technological homogeniety underway.
Prepatum/postpartum: 0.21 [18].
Individual/communal: 0.31 [17].
Artistic/technological: 0.14 [11].
Probability of survival (per 100 yr): 40%.”
“For we are the local embodiment of a Cosmos grown to self-awareness. We have begun to contemplate our origins; starstuff pondering the stars; organizing assemblages of ten billion billion billion atoms considering the evolution of atoms; tracing the long journey by which, here at least, consciousness arose. Our loyalties are to the species and the planet. We speak for earth. Our obligation to survive is owed not just to ourselves but also to that Cosmos, ancient and vast, from which we sprang.”
Best,
Phil
Ah, Sagan. Poet-Scientist, great popularizer of all things Science and especially Astronomy. How many future Nobel prize winners will credit him with influencing their decision to do Science in the first place? He was the man.
However, I think he was a bit optimistic. We're probably moreso like Kaku's rating of us as a 0.7 Level civilization. We're closing in on 1.0, but first we have to be able to more fully tap the energy of the Earth (and Big Oil is surreptitiously holding us back in that regard. Damn Corporate Politics!).
I think it's more than a bit of a race to see if we can do that before Hawking's window closes.
Hawking is probably the closest thing we have to Sagan. I often find myself 50/50 on his latest theories, only to become more like 80/20 after further study. If only he's let string theory go!
Dr. Bob Park of U. Maryland has a wonderful website, What's New? on the net. If it were up to him and others, we would forego manned spaceflight completely. I agree with his chief argument: it's bloody expensive, but so?
If only we could get Big Oil to come on board, since they seem to have all the money. Discovering oil on the moon would help! Alas, the big gray chunk of titanium oxide seems devoid of life, and no life = no petroleum. Perhaps if they diversified ....
Post a Comment