| An interview with Stephen Hawking was recently posted to HN. In the interview he states that UFOs are only witnessed by crackpots and that the laws of the universe prevent interstellar travel. The "crackpot" statement aside, I think it's incredibly disturbing that a scientist of his stature makes absolute predictions like we'll never travel to another star. I believe he is pretty good at his job, but saying something is impossible -- based on our current understanding of physics -- seems silly. No one in the physics community could say that our understanding of the universe is complete. The most prevalent theme in physics today is still the incompleteness of our understanding. We can't reconcile our understanding of the largest things in the universe with our understanding of the smallest. Although we can measure gravity, predict and observe its effects, we have no consistent explanation for it. I'd say that thousands of years of fiction (speculative or otherwise) remain largely unaffected by hundreds of years of physics. Our understanding of the universe is still in its infancy. We also have a history of having our deepest beliefs overturned by progress. Why would the beliefs of the late 20th century be any different? [Edited for language use] [Edit] He dismissed the idea of time travel in that article, not interstellar travel. My criticism still applies. http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/07/steven-hawking-on-tim... |