Stephen Hawking was one of the greatest and most celebrated minds of our time, known for his pioneering work in cosmology and theoretical physics.
Hawking was one of the most brilliant and celebrated minds of our time. He was Research Director of the Center for Theoretical Cosmology and Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge. At the young age of 20, he was diagnosed with a motor neuron disease called ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease, with which he was estimated to have 2 years to live.
His mobility and communication skills were completely limited, as well as being confined to a wheelchair due to his disability and being forced to speak into a voice synthesizer. He was the longest-lived survivor in the world to remain so long with this disease when he died at the age of 76 in March 2018. In 2014 in the film “The Theory of Everything” his fight against his disease condition was represented.
He received numerous prizes, medals, awards and honors and distinctions among which stand out; the CBE in 1982. He was made a Companion of Honor in 1989 and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009 by United States President Barack Obama. The Copley Medal of the Royal Society, the Albert Einstein Award, the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society, the Prize for Fundamental Physics and the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Prize in Basic Sciences. He was a member of the Royal Society, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences of the United States, among others.
During his life, despite his illness, he was not limiting because he made many contributions to science, he opened new paths on the basic laws that govern the universe, including the revelation that black holes have a temperature that produces radiation, known as radiation from Hawking. Likewise, he tried to argue many of these complicated scientific beliefs to a wider public through popular books, especially his best seller “A Brief History of Time” published in 1988, written in a fairly accessible language, helping to understand why what the universe exists, how it began and what it will be like in the future.
Regarding the future, Hawking was able to understand what was in the Universe, as well as what would come to our planet according to science.
1.- Extraterrestrial contact
We have all raised ideas of close encounters of earthlings and extraterrestrial beings, this leads us to an extrasolar planet called Gliesse 832g, which could harbor life because it is similar to that of our planet earth and is close. In any given case the certainty of the truth or the extraterrestrials visit us when they can be contacted by these beings, Hawking pointed out that we must be careful with unknown life forms. Hawking has his own prediction about how man and alien life could collide.
He added “One day we could receive a signal from a planet like this, but we should be cautious when responding. Encountering an advanced civilization could be like the Native Americans encountering Columbus. That didn’t work out so well.”
2.- Climate Change
In 2017, he clarified during the interview that the Earth could end up with the same fate as our neighboring planet Venus if global warming reaches its threshold, it would be a great danger.
“We are close to the tipping point where global warming becomes irreversible.” At that time, President Donald Trump decided that the United States would leave the Paris climate agreement, which led to a possible fate: “it could push the Earth to the edge of the abyss, so that it becomes like Venus, with a temperature of two hundred and fifty degrees, with rains of sulfuric acid”, pointed out the scientist.
3.- Genetic modification
Hawking describes the species as “superhuman competition,” the possibility of the most powerful transforming the species. “Smarter, stronger and longer-lived. What would happen to the rest of us mortals would be that we will become extinct or cease to be important.”
Just as he assumed the possibility that genetic engineering will create a new species of superhuman that can destroy the rest of humanity.
Hawking raised the possibility that advances in genetics might make the idea of people trying to improve themselves attractive, with implications for “unimproved humans.”
4.- Technology in Artificial Intelligence
The scientist also had something to say about the advances in AI. Thanks to a replacement in his synthesized speech system that uses Artificial Intelligence, Hawking had a new technology that learned how Hawking thought and suggested words he could use next.
From this, he stated “The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.”
He also explained his point of view on the matter in an interview with The Usa Herald, “It’s scary that AI could completely replace humans. If people design computer viruses, someone will design an AI that replicates itself. It will be a new functional innovation as a way of life that will surpass humans.”
5.- Space explorations
Hawking claimed that the best way for the species to survive was to colonize the Solar System.
“Dissemination may be the only thing that saves us from ourselves. I am convinced that human beings must leave Earth,” he emphasized.
In the first instance, he clarified that man should step on the Moon again. “Every time we make a new big jump to the moon like the moon landings, there are new discoveries and advances in technology.”
The scientist was passionate about space flight, seeing flight as a step towards true space travel. In 2007, he flew aboard Zero Gravity Corp.’s Boeing 727 aircraft, which performs parabolic trajectories that allow passengers to experience brief periods of weightlessness.
Hawking had a free ticket to traverse the space around the Earth as a Virgin Galactic crew member on his Virgin Space Ship, but unfortunately he never got to do it. The Usa Herald reported.
