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102 Comments
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+79existing is weird....
- zweben, on 10/12/2007, -3/+67It's only obvious because, when Steven Hawking said it, he created a past event of him teaching humanity fundamental laws about one dimensional space for you to recall, making it seem obvious.
Obviously. - jacks0n, on 10/12/2007, -11/+59Isn't that obvious? The past is only constituted by events that occur in the present.
We don't need Stephen Hawking telling us that one... - Flankk, on 10/12/2007, -3/+36No. Stephen Hawkings doesn't say anything.
- mv10, on 10/12/2007, -5/+34Stephen Hawkings says the darndest things..
- shinynew, on 10/12/2007, -3/+28@hammydude
I hear not existing will be even weirder. - kodek, on 10/12/2007, -2/+19No. That's dvorak. :D
- HanSolo69, on 10/12/2007, -0/+16in Soviet Russia, past creates you!
- shinynew, on 10/12/2007, -5/+17ah but it does get buried
- riskable, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10You're sort of missing the point of Hawking's argument. It isn't an "either, or" existence. It is quite simply this:
We can deduce past events from our frame of reference by examining the ripple effects of those events. For example: A dinosaur walks into a tar pit, gets stuck, and is preserved for millions of years. We dig up the bones and observe the leftovers of that past event. That dinosaur created a ripple in time that allowed us to observe and deduce what it was and what happened to it. We can use mathematical calculations with potassium and argon radioactive decay to determine that the dinosaur died say, 55 million years go. We can also use depth and geological formations to figure out that it fell into a tar pit. We can even compare the bones to other bones and, well, what we know about bones and figure out what *kind* of dinosaur it was. However, there's always that unanswered question: Why did it go into the tar pit?
We can make all sorts of logical guesses: Perhaps it was fleeing a predator. Perhaps the tar pit was covered in water and the dinosaur couldn't see that it was a tar pit. Perhaps the dinosaur was suffering from a brain disease and wandered into the pit thinking it was a good place to find food. Perhaps old dinosaurs leave the pack at old age and enter the tar pit to keep themselves from being a burden on the pack. They're all possible and some are more likely than others--but there's no way to know. All you can do is pick one and hope you're right.
Hawking is saying pretty much the same thing about the universe. We can observe red shift and calculate the age of the universe under the assumption that the speed and frequency of microwave radiation remained constant since the big bang. What string theory is telling us is that perhaps microwave radiation hasn't remained constant--that the motion of matter can speed up or slow down (as in, the delta of one dimensional strings). If the microwave radiation passed through an area of space where it sped up, the calculations of the age of the universe could be *way* off. The same thing goes for if those microwaved passed through space that had its motion sped up.
No matter how you observe the history of the universe, there's no way to know (at least right now with our present knowledge) where and when changes in string delta occurs. So you can't really estimate with certainty the age of the universe or it's state because there's too many ways things could have gone and--this is the big one--since there's no timeline to go back and forth in (as in, time travel is impossible because there is only "now") there is literally no way to know.
I happen to agree with him =)
-Riskable
http://riskable.com
"I have a license to kill -9" - 3rdMEgo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11I'm not going to say that the site you link to is ridiculous. I actually applaud it. It really takes balls to claim that perhaps the most celebrated theory in modern physics is false. But the site doesn't even stop at that! The author is so confident in his ability to take the derivative of t with respect to itself, he doesn't even bother offering any other proof, other than a few quotes from some physicists who apparently, in his opinion, aren't "crackpots." Which... you know... makes them right...
whatever
MEgo - timewarrior, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12NewScientist
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/fundamentals/mg19025481.300-exploring-stephen-hawkings-flexiverse.html
Full text
http://okgrouputer.blogspot.com/2006/05/heisenberg-lsd-stephen-hawkings.html - heymark, on 10/12/2007, -7/+14Equations will never make us truly understand anything. They simply provide us with a method of seeing the universe in a format we created. Mathematics is something of mankind, not the universe. I'm sure man will never comprehend what the hell is actually happening now. But, I'm glad we're making advancements. It's always good.
- QueenOfSwords, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Err it would be us *now*, actually. And at any point in time.
That one'll bake your noodle. - starmanjones, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6>Mathematics is something of mankind, not the universe. I'm sure man will never comprehend
>what the hell is actually happening now.
i think mathmatics would be THE language of the universe. when we meet our first aliens i'm sure that they will know science at least as well as we will. the only original thing mankind... humans will contribute to the universe is our culture... art... music... literature... by my think'n anyway. - wandog, on 10/12/2007, -5/+11"It's entirely predictable that physics is collapsing towards a homocentric view of the Universe, but Hawking is, of course, quite wrong about there not being an Observer all along."
Umm...what? Is this some sort of religious propaganda? - cully, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7It doesn't even seem like the past actually exists.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5The only thing I understand after reading the article is that this headline is misleading.
- iluvatar, on 10/12/2007, -7/+12I came up with the exact same theory about a month ago!
Of course, I was really high at the time... - slackor, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4"eventually we all become one glorious whole!" - Arnold Rimmer
- LavaHot, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Hey, if you're saying that we don't need a quantum physicist to tell us that effect preceeds cause, then you're smarter than I am.
- heymark, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Is this all not incredibly interesting? Not to say any of our speculations are true or not, but, the fact that we understand that we exist to begin with is amazing. I absolutely adore being able to look at my life and think "i haven't a clue what is actually happening or what this means!"
Everything thing you/i/everyone has ever done/said/thought/perceived has been apart of the experience we call "The Universe". This website, the entire Internet, every living organism, every molecule, every planet, every star, space, time, light, ... everything.
Just... wow.
I try to wrap my mind around the universe not existing -- It's absolutely impossible. I am apart of it. I can only comprehend existence. Yet, i yearn to understand it from "outside the box". I want to know how this works!
Ehh, 'nough ranting. - Godel, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6God damn psuedo-physicists, that is not what Hawking is saying at all.
- DyceFreak, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4of course im creating my past right now, I am totally against creating any future for myself what so ever...
- daofma, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Personally, I don't think a "***** child" knows what the '"anthropic landscape" argument that is causing controversy among string theorists' is, for instance.
I also don't think a child would have the attention span to read that whole article. Nor would an average adult. Nor, even, would an average Digg-reading adult. - torrentado, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3*head aspl0des*
- timewarrior, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Wave-Function of the Universe
http://library.thinkquest.org/27930/wavefunction.htm
A lecture by Hartle
http://online.itp.ucsb.edu/online/strings03/hartle/ - Photar, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3You three all all wrong, you all wrote that in the past. I read it in the past and I am replying to it in the past, and now you have just read this in the past.
- stuartnoble, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Makes sense to me. Quantum physics states you change the outcome of a possibility by observing it, so observing the universe must affect the outcome of it's existence.
Personally I don't think we'll ever really know how it works. The legendary prophet Douglas Adams once stated that the universe is such that if it is ever fully understood it shall immediately cease to be and will be replaced by something even more inexplicable. - JohntB, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3It's easy to take the derivative of t with respect to itself: 1.
- cully, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5"existing is weird...."
only ontologically. - venom8599, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Makes sense. All he's said is that we don't know the initial starting state of the universe (if there was one), so it makes more sense to try to figure out from a top-down approach. We should look around and work backwards to try to reach an explanation of the universe, instead of just wildly speculating and forcing a rigid set of criteria as a starting point to try and rig simulations to explain it. Seems logical to me.
Anything that was mentioning observation simply means we can't just step out of the universe and observe it from outside like we can with normal experiments; we're forced to observe it from the inside.
The title of the Digg submission is pretty inaccurate though, and so many people don't bother to read the actual article. - foobario, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4"It doesn't even seem like the past actually exists."
It does. They have really good pierogies there. - cully, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6Are you kidding? Of course mathematics are of the universe. The universe is logical. True and false exist. If you don't think so, try proving it :)
- Osjpr, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Asses... Hawking is talking about scientific method, not, "I see a blue sky. I am smarter than Stephen." It is a very different scientific approach. It's like looking at a building and working out how it came to be, without knowing it's origins. It's NOT about saying, "I think, therfore I am...duh" Like the most of the idiots in this thread think they know better."
- gh3tto, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2We're all a bunch of monkeys that enslave ourselves to buy the advanced tools created by the 0.01% of us that actually have a mind. Only Stephen Hawking would have the time on his hands to think up this silliness.
- scairborn, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Who's surprised by this statement? Did it really need the exclamation point? I mean think about it. In the present your are creating your past. Thats what I was taught in kindergarten. Now if you think about you're also creating your future too...
- Stevethegreat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The are two kinds of people who believe that they are smarter that Hawking or anyone at his position: those who are indeed smarter (they must be really rare) and the idiots ones (they are very common) whose minds cannot grasp complex concepts and they assume that what Hawking says are nonsense.
For people who comes to their mind to question Hawking (or any other Smart scientist) before writing it down they have to hit their heads against the wall saying to themselves, I'm too little to question 'em, I'm too little to question them, I'm too little to question 'em.
Regarding this, world class scientists are smarter from common people more than common people are from a baboon .... interesting it somewhat fits there, it's like a baboon questions you why from 2 plus 2 you make 4 and not 3. - thegreyfox, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Space and Time. Hate to be the person with the ***** up watch on that trip.
- jaiwithani, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Hey, look, someone else misunderstanding what "observer" means.
This got modded up? Few physicists on Digg I guess... - Feztaa, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Some theorize that this has already happened...
- Flankk, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3No. You are typing in the present, and I am reading your past message in the present.
Only if your comment crosses the even horizon of a black hole, the singularity would form a bridge to a parallel universe where I could read it in the future. - Feztaa, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3You're just playing with semantics. You can't read it while he's writing it (unless you're standing next to him or otherwise surveiling him). So from his point of view, he is writing it now and you will read it in his future. From your point of view, you're reading it now and he wrote it in the past. Both of you are acting in the present.
- Osjpr, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I thought that too. The reporter of the article thinks his imaginary friend is real and thinks because he said so that Stephen Hawking is automatically wrong. >< nubcake
- morner, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Their approach is scientific in its very essence; they observe the world, build a mathematical model of it, and then make new observations which fit with the predictions which their model made -- it's not just a case of their looking at the world and saying "Ah ha! The sun must be shining because of E=mc^2!". Scientists in all disciplines make use of specialised tools to further their observational and predictive abilities, and the fact that they physicist's tool (calculus) has infinite intrinsic precision does not make his techniques any less valid than those of the test-tube wielding chemist or the rock-drilling geologist. As for your dilemma on the nature of proof: the real world never operates in absolutes. Take, for example, the everyday experience of crossing the road. You will make an observation that their are no cars headed in your direction, and formulate the hypothesis that it is safe to cross the road. One prediction made by this hypothesis is that you will be able to get to the other side of the road safely and, if you do indeed make it across, then the hypothesis will have been verified.
The concept of 'proof' in science is nothing like that of proof in mathematics. A scientific proof is merely the opposite of a disproof; if you had been mown down by a silent-running electric car, for example, then your road-safety hypothesis would have been disproven and would have to be adjusted or abandoned. A mathematical proof, on the other hand, states an absolute certainty; once a thing is proven mathematically, it cannot be disproven.
Anyway, my point is this: although your observation of the incompatibility of proof-based mathematics and hypothesis-based science is astute, it is also completely misguided. Physicists will use mathematics as a convenient tool with which to build a world which they can more easily manipulate, as a means to the end of more thoroughly understanding the 'real' world. It is no more valid to discard physical theories for their reliance on 'exact' mathematics, than it is to discredit mathematics because it relies on fallible pencils and paper. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Most people call this behavior schitzophrenia.
- Photar, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2It was an experiment in time. The only variable they didn't take into account was love.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfODSPIYwpQ - Newlz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@Heymark
Don't stop "rambling". I think you're exactly right! So many things we see as being a regular part of reality that we forget what it would be like should they suddenly disappear. You find it amazing that you have self-awareness. I find it incredible that we have control - choice. We can choose to keep reading this, we can choose to get up and make a coffee. We have control over our own existance. Can a table say that of itself? What about a tree? Or a cell?
Some things need to be taken away and removed from reality to be truely understood. - tidejwe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I can't agree with that when only considering the dimentions and universes we are aware of. I can agree that perhaps under the multiple universes theory that there is another me acting out the past again or something. Of course accepting this as being what he meant would mean that he is saying nothing new. I personally do not agree that my current actions are changing the past unless you are playing semantics by claiming that the past doesn't really exist but is simply a memory. Even if I could change my memories (past) by my current actions, it will not change the memories (past) of others who experienced the same thing as me but are no longer around me. Thus a general consensus of the past still remains the same regardless of my own personal brainwashing. In this dimension, and this Universe in our current state of awareness, it is not possible to literally alter the past unless you play semantics by claiming that it somehow affects parallel universes or plays on dimensions, etc. In that case it is a *DUH* factor (for most people who have already studied the theories surrounding such issues), but if he's really claiming that our actions affect our past in this universe and dimension then he is either making a play on semantics or else he's finally losing his mind. Since that is unlikely, I think everyone is simply misinterpretting what he's saying...which, when taken into account with the other theories, has been discussed by others for years now.
Watch the Jet-Li Movie "The One" for example, or the Sliders TV show or Quantum Leap. All of those are examples showing similar type of theories that have been discussed and put into media form years ago. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2The Butterfly Effect: The Director's Cut
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