Talk:Stephen Hawking

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[edit] Perhaps that is why I have sold more books than Madonna

I have found in the The Illustrated A Brief History of Time only that Hawking states in his Foreward: 'I have sold more books on physics than Madonna has on sex' but he attributes that to a remark made by his former post-doc Nathan Myhrvold. Preview the book at Amazon.

I found the quote 'All of my life, I have been fascinated by the big questions that face us, and have tried to find scientific answers to them' on the PBS website for their 1997 TV program series Stephen Hawking's Universe. But I didn't find it in the book above. Google the detached quote for that webpage, where an extended version of the quote (without any reference to Madonna) can be read.

However, I have not found a source for the two quotes concatenated, except as frequent 'me-too' quotes on webpages without a valid source.

Also, the two quotes seem like a non-sequitur to me... not really the train of thought I'd expect from Hawking.

So I doubt the validity of the combined quote. I hesitate to remove it from the quote page, until verified by someone else. Then perhaps someone that feels convinced enough can change the quote and sources on the web page. On the other hand, a specific page reference in the book for the combined quote would put the doubt to rest.

[edit] Zellerbach Hall

Someone who knows this stuff, and how to source it well:

http://www.dailycal.org/sharticle.php?id=23829
in the stream there he says something like:


"Eternity is a very long time, especially towards the end", about the prospect of proving that the universe spontaneously popped into existence, which he now claims to believe. 68.108.240.33 21:05, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I found myself emotionally touched by the words that Professor Hawking spoke in the 1993 BT commercial.
Even though 'impressive' and 'tremendous' are hardly adequate as adjectives when one must qualify his scientific work,
in my personal opinion, the simple words of that commercial might very well be his most important advice to mankind,
I often refer to that text as "Hawking's Advice"
10 January 2008: Jos van Kesteren (NL)

[edit] It is not clear that intelligence has any long-term survival value.

I think I saw something similar in the chapter about the future of the human race at "The Universe in a Nutshell". Please verify and source it. --201.88.237.63 23:09, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] bold text vs. non bold text

I'm a touch confused as to what the difference between bold text and non bold text is... Does anyone know?

[edit] Unsourced

• There is no prescribed route to follow to arrive at a new idea. You have to make the intuitive leap. But the difference is that once you've made the intuitive leap you have to justify it by filling in the intermediate steps. In my case, it often happens that I have an idea, but then I try to fill in the intermediate steps and find that they don't work, so I have to give it up

• You have to be creative to do science. Otherwise you're just repeating tired formulas

My goal is simple. It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all.

• People need not be limited by physical handicaps as long as they are not disabled in spirit.

• He's a Platonist and I am a positivist. He's worried that Schrödinger's cat is in a quantum state, where it is half dead and half alive. He feels that can't correspond to reality. But that doesn't bother me. I don't demand that a theory correspond to reality because I do not know what it is. Reality is not a quality you can test with litmus paper. All I am concerned with is that the theory should predict the results of measurements. Quantum theory does this very successfully. It predicts that the result of an observation is either that the cat is alive or that it is dead. It is like you can't be slightly pregnant; you either are or you aren't.
  • About Roger Penrose

• I find that American & Scandinavian accents work better with women.
  • Response to a question about the American accent of his synthesiser

• I have noticed even people who claim everything is predestined, and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road.

• I think computer viruses should count as life. I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We've created life in our own image.

• I'm working on that.
  • Smilingly looking at the Warp Core engine of the starship Enterprise on the set of Star Trek: The Next Generation, in the episode in which he plays himself.

• It is not clear that intelligence has any long-term survival value.

• It matters if you just don't give up.

• Maybe my variety is due to bad absorption of vitamins.
  • After being asked by the British Medical Journal why his condition had evolved differently from a typical case of motor neurone disease.

• The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.

• The world has changed far more in the past 100 years than in any other century in history. The reason is not political or economic but technological — technologies that flowed directly from advances in basic science.

• There are grounds for cautious optimism that we may now be near the end of the search for the ultimate laws of nature.

• To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit.

• We could call order by the name of God, but it would be an impersonal God. There's not much personal about the laws of physics.

• We shouldn't be surprised that conditions in the universe are suitable for life, but this is not evidence that the universe was designed to allow for life.

• When I hear of Schrödinger's cat, I reach for my gun.
  • A variation on a line from German playwright Hanns Johst's play Schlageter: "Wenn ich Kultur höre ... entsichere ich meinen Browning" - "Whenever I hear of culture... I release the safety-catch of my Browning!" (Act 1, Scene 1).

• I think it would be a disaster. The extraterrestrials would probably be far in advance of us. The history of advanced races meeting more primitive people on this planet is not very happy, and they were the same species. I think we should keep our heads low.
  • Interview with National Geographic about the possibility of an alien invasion