Skip to main content

Stephen Hawking: "Selling of Scientific celebrity" by Charles Seife



I haven't read that book yet. But there is something that I wanted to comment on when I read about the review of that book. At the first Stephen Hawking (1942-2018) was a remarkable man. The second thing he still is an iconic character in his wheelchair and cosmos above him. 

The third thing is that he gave the faces to the ALS. That sad syndrome is the thing that made that man an icon. When Hawking was a young man. He made remarkable research about black holes. In elder age, that man didn't produce new information. 

But when we are looking at the information from the point of view of science. There should be something that confirms the information. And in the youth of Hawking, there were no CCD cameras, space telescopes, or artificial intelligence. 

The advancing of equipment is expanding our knowledge. And we must realize that the past scientists were also at the top of their era. Once Isaac Newton was the top man in physics. Then the tools were turned better and at the beginning of the 20th. century the top man in physics was Albert Einstein or Max Planck. 

Those men and many other scientists, philosophers, and researchers like Marie Curie along with engineers are written their names in the history of science. Some of them lived before Planck and Einstein. Some of them lived after them. So the world of science is advancing all the time. And nothing is stable. 

Those kinds of observation tools were very limited if we want to compare them with modern telescopes. If we use the most powerful instruments in their most extreme limits, getting the new data requires new instruments. 

The thing is that Hawking might be one of the most incredible men in science and research. And sometimes is asked what if Hawking was a woman? Could that person be the same way as well-known as Stephen Hawking was? The answer is that nobody knows. There are many interesting things in Hawking's wheelchair like the application that allows that person to communicate by moving eyes. 

And of course, things like speech synthesizers were interesting. But as we know Hawking paid a very big price for those things. The fact is that he raised the iconic mind that is not connected with the body. The thing is also. That ALS was maybe the reason why he wanted to make those researches. 

Sitting in a wheelchair is very boring. And that thing would motivate people like Hawking to make things that they want or what they can. Social isolation in that case is also giving power. Then somebody criticized Hawking that he was giving testimonies about aliens and artificial intelligence. He might not be an expert on those things. 

We all know that people are giving testimonies and writing a text about things that was not consist of the know-how or nucleus of the skills of those people. So we all have a right to comment on those things. And that was also Hawkin's right. When we are discussing the alien race. 

No expert on the Earth can give a precise answer. To the question of what the alien race might look like. There is no certain confirmed evidence about the captured spacecraft. But of course, there is the possibility that some government has hidden the evidence about extraterrestrial lifeforms. But another fact is that I don't have access to those laboratories. 

So certainly those things do not exist. Or are they existed? The decision is yours until the evidence is uncovered. And still, somebody can ask "did you visit behind the second door on the left"? So did you check all rooms in that hypothetical laboratory? 

Even the wisest men on Earth are making mistakes. When Max Planck retired, that man said that the nuclear bomb will not work. The same thing said, Albert Einstein. But then less than ten years away the first atom bomb detonated at Alamogordo, New Mexico. 

The fact is that the highest level of knowledge and science is always getting higher. We have better tools than Hawking can ever dream. And those things are bringing new information. 

The ALS is always highlighted in the case of Stephen Hawking. Some people say that that diagnosis is over highlight. In the work of that man. The thing is that once Hawking was a very respected person in the scientific world. The new data, that come after the death of that man. Are got and handled by systems that have not existed in Hawking's active time. The ALS caused a problem for everything in his life. He couldn't use his computer anymore and that made life difficult. 




Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Schrödinger's cat: and the limits of that idea.

"In quantum mechanics, Schrödinger's cat is a thought experiment concerning quantum superposition". (Wikipedia, Schrödinger's cat). But the same thing can use as model for many other thought experiments.  Sooner or later, or at least in the ultimate end of the universe, the Schrödinger's cat will turn into wave movement. The information that this cat involved exists but the cat does not exist in its material form. The information doesn't ever vanish. It just turns its shape.  We are all trapped in the universe and time. The universe is the space that is entirety to us. There are no confirmed other universities. But the multiverse is a logical continuum for the expanding galactic megastructures.  The problem with natural things is this. They are black and white. They exist or do not exist. Could there be something, that exists and not exists at the same time?  Scrödinger's cat is thinking experiment about case their cat is not dead or not alive. But in this...

The string theory offers a new way to calculate Pi.

"Scientists discovered a new series for pi through string theory research, echoing a 15th-century formula by Madhava. By combining Euler-Beta Functions and Feynman Diagrams, they modeled particle interactions efficiently. Credit: SciTechDaily.com" (ScitechDaily, String Theory Unravels New Pi Formula: A Quantum Leap in Mathematics) People normally think that. The pi is the ratio of the circumference circle's circumference to the circle's diameter. The Pi is a mathematical constant 3.14159..., the endless decimal number. The Pi is interesting because developers can use that decimal number to make the encryption algorithms stronger.  The idea is that the encryptions program hides the message's original ASCII numbers by multiplicating those numbers with some decimal number. Or the system can add some numbers to those ASCII numbers.  "Aninda Sinha (left) and Arnab Saha (right). Credit: Manu Y" (ScitechDaily, String Theory Unravels New Pi Formula: A Quantum Le...

There are always more than three actors in the real world.

"An international research team is advancing precision timekeeping by developing a nuclear clock using thorium isotopes and innovative laser methods, potentially transforming our understanding of physical constants and dark matter. (Artist’s concept.) Credit: SciTechDaily.com" (ScitechDaily, Unveiling the Thorium Nuclear Clock and Its Time-Twisting Secrets) From Three-body problem... There are no pure three-body systems in nature. There are always more than three components in the system. For making real three-body systems we must separate those three bodies from the environment. Otherwise, there are stable effects. But nobody can predict some effects like distant supernova explosions or sun eruptions.  And one of those things that affect all bodies is time. When radioactive materials decay. That affects the stability and symmetry of the object.  Energy levels affect the existence of things like neutrons. The thorium atom clocks are next-generation tools for time measurement....