Stephen Hawking: Earth will turn into fireball in less than 600 years

Discussion in 'Science' started by wgabrie, Nov 7, 2017.

  1. wgabrie

    wgabrie Well-Known Member Donor

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    Video
    Stephen Hawking: Earth will turn into fireball in less than 600 years
    https://www.usatoday.com/videos/tec...-into-fireball-less-than-600-years/107425052/

    Well, it looks like Stephen Hawking has gone mad. How is Earth supposed to be a fireball in 600 years??? There isn't any logical train of thought about how that's supposed to happen. To think I used to look up to Hawking, but now I'm starting to question the predictions of the world's top scientists altogether. Fireball Earth??? Argh!!
     
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  2. Bear513

    Bear513 Banned

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    Oh it's a video on your link and no text...what I found


    https://www.google.com/amp/s/m.time...-stephen-hawking/amp_articleshow/61547856.cms


    Hawking appealed to investors to back his plans to travel to the closest star outside the solar system, with the hope that a habitable planet might be orbiting it, 'The Sun' reported.

    Alpha Centauri is one of the closest stars to our solar system. Scientists believe that it may host planets that could foster life, just like Earth.

     
  3. wgabrie

    wgabrie Well-Known Member Donor

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    Hawking thinks that our energy production, for a growing population, is going to turn the Earth into a fireball.
     
  4. saveliberty

    saveliberty Well-Known Member

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    Figures, in 600 years we should just about have the national debt paid off.
     
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  5. HereWeGoAgain

    HereWeGoAgain Banned

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    So how is that supposed to work?

    He may be losing it. This happens to most of the greats eventually. I can't imagine what he means.
     
  6. Just_a_Citizen

    Just_a_Citizen Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    At least we can prepare I guess.

    I'm all scared & stuff.
     
  7. tkolter

    tkolter Well-Known Member

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    Wouldn't it be cheaper to just build artificial cities in space around the solar system we could have a few out far enough to relocate them as colony ships in theevent of a need to do so and if Earth is destroyed these can keep civilization going. Colonizing planets would be possibly far more costly.
     
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  8. cerberus

    cerberus Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    OP

    Well one thing's for sure, none of us will be around to tell him he was wrong; that's exactly what these 'scientists' do - say stuff nobody can dispute. I'd guess he's laughing his head off at how seriously the more gullible among us are taking his ridiculous 'theorising'. And long may he continue - it's probably what keeps him going.
     
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  9. HereWeGoAgain

    HereWeGoAgain Banned

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    Why do you post? No one takes you seriously.
     
    Last edited: Nov 9, 2017
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  10. cerberus

    cerberus Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Why do you post? Nobody takes you seriously either.
     
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  11. OldManOnFire

    OldManOnFire Well-Known Member

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    Whew...at least we have 599 years or more before we need to worry...
     
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  12. cerberus

    cerberus Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    As well you might, wgabrie, as well you might! Welcome to the club - a very exclusive club, 'cos there ain't many of us in it! :cool: Yet?? :mrgreen:
     
  13. Arkie

    Arkie Well-Known Member

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    I honestly don't understand why anyone would care what Hawking thinks or says.
     
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  14. Aleksander Ulyanov

    Aleksander Ulyanov Well-Known Member

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    Probably just a little salesmanship on Hawking's part. He's known to like shaking things up from time to time

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/ericma...all-earth-breakthrough-starshot/#6b7da7e2464a

    OTOH if he means that the Earth might very well be uninhabitable for humans due to excessive heat by that time he's probably in agreement with most AGW believers, who include most of our reputable scientists in that field.
     
    Last edited: Nov 15, 2017
  15. Hotdogr

    Hotdogr Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    A video of him "saying" anything is immediately suspect, in my view, because you can overdub a computerized voice reading any script on it and it will be indistinguishable from his real machine.

    Imagine him frantically trying to say "WTF?!! I didn't say that!!" And all that comes out is "OMG! Huge fireball!"
     
    Last edited: Nov 15, 2017
  16. Aleksander Ulyanov

    Aleksander Ulyanov Well-Known Member

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    And I doubt if it breaks his heart what you say either.
     
  17. cerberus

    cerberus Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Nor me. But as I've said, if public theorising - which is what they're all doing when you think about it? - is his way of enhancing his life well hey, good luck to the guy.
     
  18. jay runner

    jay runner Banned

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    Hey, Mr. Spaceman, won't you please take me along, I ain't done anything wrong.

    Hey, Mr. Spaceman, won't you please take me along, for a ride.
     
  19. modernpaladin

    modernpaladin Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    We could make that happen with nukes.

    The sun could make that happen with a large CME.

    A large asteroid (or rogue planet) could make that happen.

    Aliens could make that happen with a 'Death Star.'

    Or he could be speaking metaphorically and any other of a hundred different extinction level events could be innevitable.

    In any case, 600 years is more than enough time for humans to colonize space and start terraforming mars... if we get our **** together. We are quite vulnerable being confined to this one tiny speck of dirt floating through this meatgrinder we call a universe.
     
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  20. jay runner

    jay runner Banned

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    Isn't it rather odd thinking to assume that mankind should continue indefinitely? That is, if evolution is true with so many other species having bitten the dust.
     
    Last edited: Nov 15, 2017
  21. OldManOnFire

    OldManOnFire Well-Known Member

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    Not salesmanship...serious potential! Hawking is referring to continued population growth and the requirement for more and more energy...which I'm guessing he means energy consumption that further pollutes our atmosphere and exacerbates the global climate change scenario. How much more oil and coal will humans process from century to century? While some areas of humanity will try to do better billions others around Earth will not. All of this leads to Hawking's fiery ball of death in ~600 years. I also think that Hawking believes we are already doomed to this outcome and therefore humans better find another place to live. Sure we will eventually relocate a few thousand humans away from Earth but billions more will perish along with everything else...
     
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  22. modernpaladin

    modernpaladin Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I think it odder to not assume that.

    Theres certainly no reason that we shouldnt strive to exist as long as possible.
     
    Last edited: Nov 15, 2017
  23. Smartmouthwoman

    Smartmouthwoman Bless your heart Past Donor

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    One more Roy Moore thread and Im gonna burst into flames.

    :flame::flame::flame:
     
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  24. OldManOnFire

    OldManOnFire Well-Known Member

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    Hawking didn't say 'indefinitely'...he said for another million years. Average world population growth today is 1.12%/year and we stand at 7.6 billion...in just 10 years population will be 8.5 billion...so do the math out 100 years, 200 years, 500 years, 600 years? Somewhere along this time Earth will reach it's limit which might be well before 600 years. Does anyone know how bad things will get? So what to do...just ride it out hoping something solves all the problems or be proactive? If we're proactive what does this mean? Well, one option is moving some humans off Earth...
     
  25. Arkie

    Arkie Well-Known Member

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    Yeah. That's right! Pollute this earth where it is uninhabitable for any living thing, then head off to other planets and do the same thing instead of being cautious on how we treat where we reside. Bears crap in the woods..they don't bring it home. Or..as Agent Smith says, that I FULLY agree with:

    Agent Smith: I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You're a plague.
     

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