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Thread: Stephen Hawking announces 'biggest ever' probe into alien life

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    Stephen Hawking announces 'biggest ever' probe into alien life

    Something nags at me that the govt could probably provide enough evidence to hawkings to prove alien life

    World renowned scientist Stephen Hawking and entrepreneur Yuri Milner announced Monday an unprecedented $100 million project to determine if intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe.The Breakthough Initiatives division at the Royal Society — the U.K's national academy of science — said it would be "the most powerful, comprehensive and intensive" such search ever conducted.
    The 10-year project will access to the powerful Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia and the Parkes Telescope in New South Wales, Australia, to survey the million stars closest to Earth, and will cover 10 times more sky than previous projects, the investigators said.
    "Somewhere in the cosmos, perhaps, intelligent life may be watching these lights of ours, aware of what they mean," Hawking said, according to the BBC.
    "Or do our lights wander a lifeless cosmos — unseen beacons, announcing that here, on one rock, the Universe discovered its existence. Either way, there is no bigger question. It's time to commit to finding the answer — to search for life beyond Earth," he said.

    http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/w...tion/30408501/
    LETS GO BRANDON
    F Joe Biden

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    Pretty cool!
    ΜOΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ


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    I'm very curious to see how this turns out!
    We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

    -- Oscar Wilde

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    "Probe."




    Alien puns.

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    Lightbulb

    possum thinks it'd be fun to surf a light wave...

    Stephen Hawking: Humans Should Ride a Beam of Light to Other Planets
    June 22, 2017 - Humanity should focus its efforts on exploring other worlds that we might inhabit, and to get there, Earthlings may need to ride on a beam of light, famed physicist Stephen Hawking says.
    Hawking made his remarks today (June 20) at Starmus, an arts and science festival in Norway whose advisory board he sits on. In his speech, he reiterated his belief that humans need to explore space to avoid the dangers of our own finite world. And then he described how humans could one day travel on a beam of light, harnessing the power of Einstein's theory of relativity to reach mind-bogglingly distant planets.

    Earth in peril

    The human imagination has led us to peer ever deeper into the universe with scientific tools, Hawking said. Yet despite this ability to investigate the most distant reaches of the universe without leaving our backyards, humans shouldn't be content with this sedentary approach. "Shouldn't we be content to be cosmic sloths, enjoying the universe from the comfort of Earth? The answer is, no," Hawking said in his address. "The Earth is under threat from so many areas that it is difficult for me to be positive."


    Stephen Hawking has a long list of warnings about threats to humanity.

    What's more, humans are naturally curious explorers who are driven to push into the unknown. Hawking described the looming threats of a too-crowded world facing climate change, the collapse of animal species and the draining of physical resources. (Hawking has previously mentioned his conviction that humanity is doomed in the next millennium unless people can come up with an escape plan.) "When we have reached similar crises in our history, there has usually been somewhere else to colonize. Columbus did it in 1492 when he discovered the New World. But now there is no new world. No Utopia around the corner," Hawking said.

    Explore the unknown

    The easiest targets are the places closest to home: the moon and Mars, Hawking said in his Starmus address. The moon is nearby, but it's small, has no liquid water and lacks a magnetic field to shield people from radiation. Mars may once have had liquid water and an atmosphere, but no longer. But an even more promising idea is to explore some of the planets in the vicinity of our nearest stellar neighbor, Proxima Centauri, at a distance of about 4.5 light-years from Earth, where 1 light-year is nearly 6 trillion miles (10 million kilometers). A planet circling Proxima Centauri, called Proxima Centauri b, may be somewhat similar to Earth, at least in a few respects, Hawking said. However, we'll never know how hospitable Proxima b is unless we can get there. At current speeds, using chemical propulsion, it would take 3 million years to reach the exoplanet, Hawking said. [Interstellar Space Travel: 7 Futuristic Spacecraft to Explore the Cosmos]

    Thus, space colonization requires a radical departure in our travel technology. "To go faster would require a much higher exhaust speed than chemical rockets can provide — that of light itself," Hawking said. "A powerful beam of light from the rear could drive the spaceship forward. Nuclear fusion could provide 1 percent of the spaceship's mass energy, which would accelerate it to a tenth of the speed of light." Going faster than that would require harnessing matter-antimatter annihilation or as-yet-undreamed-of technology, he added. (When matter and antimatter come into contact, they annihilate, releasing gobs of energy.)

    Tiny space probes

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    Exclamation

    Hawking on AI...

    Stephen Hawking warns AI could 'develop will of its own' to destroy humanity
    Nov. 7, 2017 -- British physicist Stephen Hawking warned that the emergence of artificial intelligence could be the "worst event in the history of our civilization" during a speech Monday.
    Speaking at the Web Summit technology conference in Lisbon, Portugal, Hawking said that AI will be able to emulate and exceed human intelligence, which could result in an array of immense benefits, including finding cures for diseases and solutions to problems plaguing nature. However, Hawking said humans just don't know yet what the outcome of AI will be. "So we cannot know if we will be infinitely helped by AI, or ignored by it and side-lined, or conceivably destroyed by it," Hawking said, according to CNBC."Unless we learn how to prepare for, and avoid, the potential risks, AI could be the worst event in the history of our civilization. It brings dangers, like powerful autonomous weapons, or new ways for the few to oppress the many. It could bring great disruption to our economy."


    British physicist Stephen Hawking on Monday warned that the development of artificial intelligence could pose great risks for humanity.

    He added: "AI could develop a will of its own, a will that is in conflict with ours and which could destroy us. In short, the rise of powerful AI will be either the best, or the worst thing ever to happen to humanity." Hawking urged the European Union and other governing bodies around the world to work on legislation to restrict the fast-growing world of AI technology. Hawking voiced his misgivings about AI previously in 2014 when he told the BBC: "The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race." This month, however, he is one of several scientists telling world leaders that AI poses a threat to humankind.

    A group of Australian researchers penned a letter to Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to ban artificially intelligent robot weapons. "Lethal autonomous weapons systems that remove meaningful human control from determining the legitimacy of targets and deploying lethal force sit on the wrong side of a clear moral line," the researchers said, according to the Adelaide Advertiser. "As many AI and robotics corporations...have recently urged, autonomous weapons systems threaten to become the third revolution in warfare.The deadly consequence of this is that machines -- not people -- will determine who lives and dies."

    https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-N...&utm_medium=15

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    This explains why so many people are planning on going to Mars in our future to live there.

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    Quote Originally Posted by waltky View Post
    Hawking on AI...

    Stephen Hawking warns AI could 'develop will of its own' to destroy humanity
    Nov. 7, 2017 -- British physicist Stephen Hawking warned that the emergence of artificial intelligence could be the "worst event in the history of our civilization" during a speech Monday.
    I can understand Hawking's concerns but I'm not sure there could be anything we can do other than stop technological advancement. Humans have tried many times to come up with a system that could rein in the damages done by "natural" intelligence and we haven't done a very good job so far.


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    Quote Originally Posted by Don View Post
    I can understand Hawking's concerns but I'm not sure there could be anything we can do other than stop technological advancement. Humans have tried many times to come up with a system that could rein in the damages done by "natural" intelligence and we haven't done a very good job so far.
    Perhaps humans aren't all that intelligent.
    We need an advanced form of intelligence to put the world to rights before we can tell other entities what we consider is best for them.

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