Stephen Hawking, for One, Does Not Welcome Our Potential Alien Overlords | 80beats

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Independence DayIn a half-century of hunting, the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) has turned up nary a whisper from E.T. But for renowned physicist Stephen Hawking, the non-success of SETI and others who hope to contact alien life might be for the best: Aliens, he says, might not like us.

Hawking caused waves with this suggestion in his new Discovery Channel special, which debuted last night. He has long believed that extraterrestrial life exists, simply because of the sheer vastness of the universe. While much of what’s out there might be simple microbial life, there may indeed be new civilizations far more advanced than our own. But that doesn’t mean they’ll be friendly.

Said Hawking: “We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet. I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonise whatever planets they can reach” [The Times].

Should aliens decide to drop in on our pale blue dot, he predicts they may come not in a spirit of peace and understanding, but more likely in the spirit with which Europeans conquered Native Americans and colonized what’s now the United States. These alien wanderers similarly might see human society as primitive and unimportant, and attack our planet for its resources, he says.

While Hawking contends that contacting E.T. would be quite risky for us, he also considers the possibility that we’ll never get the chance, even if there are advanced civilizations on distant worlds. “Perhaps they all blow themselves up soon after they discover that E=mc2. If civilizations take billions of years to evolve, only to vanish virtually overnight, then sadly we’ve next to no chance of hearing from them” [MSNBC].

The four-part TV special, which DISCOVER previewed in our April issue, took Hawking and the producers three years to create. Besides the alien menace, Hawking also had a little fun with time travel last night, throwing a party for time travelers and sending out invitations after the party (nobody from the future comes). The third and fourth parts, covering the life and death of the universe, air this coming Sunday, May 2.

For another take on Hawking’s comments, head to Bad Astronomy where Phil Plait takes a more skeptical view of the potential for doom-wielding alien visitors.

Related Content:
DISCOVER: Stephen Hawking Is Making His Comeback
DISCOVER: Inside the World of Stephen Hawking
DISCOVER: Hawking’s Exit Strategy
DISCOVER: The Best in Science Culture This Month
Cosmic Variance: Hawking: Beware the Alien Menace!
Bad Astronomy: In Which I Disagree With Stephen Hawking

Image: “Independence Day” / Centropolis Entertainment


IPN200 Evaluation of Reduced Ductility Due to Bending

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We are intending to bend an IPN200 steel beam about the major axis but to a very tight radius 1.35m. It can be done but the strain during bending is very high and will affect the steel properties. Yield strength will still be okay but ductility is likely to be a problem as a minimum ductility is req

Ford Ranger Overdrive Message

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Hi .

I have a Ford Ranger 2000 with 2005 V6 engine . The engine was recently replaced . When i drive on Highway and reach 100 Km/H and more the Overdrive Off light in the pannel start to blink minutes later and when down the speed in the same driving the shifting become hard and i can feel it i

Change In Experiment Will Delay Shuttle Launch

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From Slashdot:

A $1.5 billion gamma ray experiment, the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, that was to have launched aboard the space shuttle Endeavor to the International Space Station in July, has undergone a last minute design change that will change the launch date, pushing back the

The Global Warming Bill Crackup | The Intersection

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Well, so much for getting a new piece of climate legislation introduced today. As ClimateWire reports:
The Senate climate bill sits on the brink of collapse today after the lead Republican ally threatened to abandon negotiations because of a White House push to simultaneously overhaul the nation's immigration policies.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has been under fire from conservatives for months for helping to shepherd a Democrat-led bid to tackle global warming via a "grand compromise" on energy. But on Saturday afternoon, he signaled the partnership could soon be over.
Graham promised to leave President Obama and Senate Democrats standing at the altar after they started pushing last week for a comprehensive immigration reform bill that he called "nothing more than a cynical political ploy" headed into the 2010 midterm elections. Oh boy. Need I say that this flap augurs extremely poorly for the chances of getting a bill passed any time soon? The politics of this are hard enough already, and now we're stopping before we even got started. Quoted in the ClimateWire piece, I think Tom Friedman puts it best:
"The result is, right now ... in Beijing, they are high-fiving each other," Friedman added. "Oh yeah baby. This means the Americans are ...


Load Cell Drift in Scales

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I have a precision scale that is used very seldom.

When it was calibrated ( annual) last February, several test points were OOT, too low ( by .0030g).

Question: Is this normal for load cells to drift this much?

In a CAPA, I recommended a certification ( taking it through i

Full-Face Transplant in Spain Called World 1st

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From CBC | Technology & Science News:

A hospital in Spain has carried out the world's first full-face transplant, on a young man whose nose, skin, jaws, cheekbones, teeth and other features were replaced following an accident, officials say. Other transplant experts lauded the sur

In which I disagree with Stephen Hawking | Bad Astronomy

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Apparently Stephen Hawking read my book, but not very carefully, because he thinks aliens will come here ala "Independence Day"* and eat up all our resources and move on.

I disagree with him. I think in fact it’s more likely that an aggressive alien race would create self-replicating robot probes that will disperse through the galaxy and destroy all life that way.

But more likely still doesn’t equate to likely. I’ve been thinking about this on and off for a few days, in fact, and I suspect a likely answer to Fermi’s Paradox — "Where are they?" — is simply that intelligent life that is capable of interstellar flight doesn’t last long enough to colonize other stars. That would neatly explain why, if stars with planets are common (which we know is almost certainly true), and the conditions for life to arise are relatively common (again, that seems very likely), the galaxy isn’t overrun with life. It should be by now; it’s had billions of years to have space-faring races evolve and colonize the whole shebang.

So in reality, Hawking’s idea and the one I go over in my book are probably wrong. But I’m an optimist, and I can hope that the reason the galaxy isn’t softly humming with life (that’s Carl Sagan’s poetic phrase) is that we’re the first, or at least the first in a while. That would mean we still get our chance. It’s a big responsibility, really.

And to be clear, that’s not snark, even if this post started out a bit snarky. I’m serious. We may be utterly, entirely alone in a galaxy filled with planets that outnumber people on our own planet 50 to 1. That idea gives me the creeps more than the idea of hostile aliens bent on sterilizing each of those planets. But at least it gives us a good chance to spread and see the place a bit. I’d like to think that in a hundred generations, this arm of the Milky Way will boast a thousand human planets. It’s a nice thought.

[Note added after I wrote this: I see Sean at Cosmic Variance has weighed in on this as well. But I heard it first from that man about town Josh Cagan.]

*A movie I liked and about which I am unapologetic.


Machine Screws

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My request is simple. I need a #8-32 x 3/8 Flat Head Machine Screw, 100 deg., in 18-8 SS, #1 Phillips. The problem seems is that, up to now, I have not been able to find this hardware as a stock item anywhere (#2 Phillips is standard). We are a small company and can't afford to layout ~~$1000

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we have 4 nos 100MVA transformer at 220/34.5 kv rating, ynd1 group.

as per GTP drg current is 0.5A at no-load when we applied at rated voltage level.

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regards