I will always remember him. And my future kids will know who a great human he was. Rest in peace Stephen.
Stephen Hawking has died
221–230 of 468 posts
Re: Stephen Hawking has died
#222Growing up in the middle of nowhere, Canada in the 1980s, the library didn't have many good science books. When Hawking's book got published, it was the only thing available like that anywhere around. Remember, this is before you could get any book in existence within one month via Amazon. There was no Amazon. I got A Brief History of Time and read it, and it's almost cliche to say so, but it changed the course of my…
Can you share the names of other physics books that you think are good & readable ?
There's a very good book called E=mc^2: A Biography of the World's Most Famous Equation written by David Bodanis. I think I read it at about 16 and it was very approachable.
Re: Stephen Hawking has died
#223Stephen Hawking was born on the date of Galileo's death, the 8th of January.
He has died on the date of Albert Einstein's birth, the 14th of March.
Source:- https://twitter.com/spectatorindex/status/973807157182332928
Re: Stephen Hawking has died
#224Earlier quoted context omitted.
In before or instead of Sagan possibly? I was not particularly aware of Sagan before the internet, whereas I imagine Hawking has been a household name in much of the world for decades?
Shouldn't downvote this. Carl Sagan is nowhere as famous as the other three, probably except the US.
Sagan is a special case. Will be remembered (mainly) as a very good science communicator. Not so many people connect it with a famous and top-class scientist woman. The work of his first wife, Lynn Margulis, changed forever the concept of evolution.
If we put Sagan with Darwin we should not forget to add Margulis to this list also.
Re: Stephen Hawking has died
#225Even if there is only one possible unified theory, it is just a set of rules and equations. What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe? The usual approach of science of constructing a mathematical model cannot answer the questions of why there should be a universe for the model to describe. Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing? Is the unified theory so…
Causality is an artefact of the universe. From a philosophical standpoint we would need to establish that why is the key question or we are chasing a socks theory of feet. And that is assuming that why is about causality rather than intention. To paraphrase this abstract's ending, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason - for then the mind of God would be knowable.
If we do come up with a grand unified theory that spawns the existence of everything that's completely self contained and self describing, and it ends up being something like x + y = z, what does that really explain? Why? It's because x + y = z, that's why! Once we boil it down to that why becomes meaningless. Everything ultimately has the same reason why.
Re: Stephen Hawking has died
#226This warrants the black bar. He has changed everything for humanity time and again. We owe him the best future we can possibly make.
If they didn't do one for JP Barlow I feel like that's an indication they're not doing it anymore.
Re: Stephen Hawking has died
#227An inspiration, pioneer, visionary and now a legend. The world is less brighter now that a star has left us on Earth.
Re: Stephen Hawking has died
#228His last comment on the Internet is relevant to Hacker News.. someone asked him about unemployment due to automation and the rise of technology[1]: "If machines produce everything we need, the outcome will depend on how things are distributed. Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if the machine-produced wealth is shared, or most people can end up miserably poor if the machine-owners successfully lobby again…
>* "If machines produce everything we need, the outcome will depend on how things are distributed. Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if the machine-produced wealth is shared, or most people can end up miserably poor if the machine-owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution. So far, the trend seems to be toward the second option, with technology driving ever-increasing inequality."* Which coi…
Piketty also did good job in providing proof that the discourse Marx's capital started is still relevant today: wealth keeps concentrating and that will undermine the whole premise of democracy.
“When the rate of return on capital exceeds the rate of growth of output and income, as it did in the nineteenth century and seems quite likely to do again in the twenty-first, capitalism automatically generates arbitrary and unsustainable inequalities that radically undermine the meritocratic values on which democratic societies are based.” ― Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century
This outcome is probably clear to anyone who has been paying attention, but the power of Piketty's book is in the way it lays out mathematical proof using pile of historical data as evidence.
The response to Piketty's book from ideological opposition have ranged from "So what?" to more valid attempts at asking theoretical questions about the validity of r > g, but nothing exactly that comes close to debunking the core thesis.
Re: Stephen Hawking has died
#229Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think a good way to say it might be: I'm not afraid of death, I'm afraid of not existing.
I do not fear non-existence. For most of the history of the universe, I did not exist. I have considerable experience with that. Dying appears to be unpleasant, though.
Well, you existed. You just were not assembled in quite the same manner.
Re: Stephen Hawking has died
#230This warrants the black bar. He has changed everything for humanity time and again. We owe him the best future we can possibly make.
I agree. I consider no black bar: - a violation of the principle of least surprise - a statement of discrimination Precedent has been set by the fact that it has been used in the past. If its usage is being wound down, I reckon this more than qualifies as exceptionally justifiable.
Your comment illustrates perfectly why the black bar is a bad idea... unless it gets used for every death posted here someone will feel discriminated against and offended that it was omitted for someone they like. And if it is used for everyone, people will feel that its meaning has been degraded, because the black bar has become a status symbol - something to be "earned" or "deserved". And inevitably there will be tedious arguments over who deserves the black bar, and who doesn't, and what precedent is set by this person getting it and not that, and whether it means the moderators are biased, on and on.
All of this sad nonsense over a stylesheet tweak that in the end means nothing and honors no one and whose application has always been entirely arbitrary. It's a distraction which is best done away with IMHO.