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Stephen Hawking says universe not created by God
D.M.N.
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Interesting article about a piece in a new book by Stephen Hawking, which has gained a lot of interest: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/sep/02/stephen-hawking-big-bang-creator
God did not create the universe, the man who is arguably Britain's most famous living scientist says in a forthcoming book.
In the new work, The Grand Design, Professor Stephen Hawking argues that the Big Bang, rather than occurring following the intervention of a divine being, was inevitable due to the law of gravity.
In his 1988 book, A Brief History of Time, Hawking had seemed to accept the role of God in the creation of the universe. But in the new text, co-written with American physicist Leonard Mlodinow, he said new theories showed a creator is "not necessary".
The Grand Design, an extract of which appears in the Times today, sets out to contest Sir Isaac Newton's belief that the universe must have been designed by God as it could not have been created out of chaos.
"Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing," he writes. "Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist.
"It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going."
In the forthcoming book, published on 9 September, Hawking says that M-theory, a form of string theory, will achieve this goal: "M-theory is the unified theory Einstein was hoping to find," he theorises.
"The fact that we human beings – who are ourselves mere collections of fundamental particles of nature – have been able to come this close to an understanding of the laws governing us and our universe is a great triumph."
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Edit - Me and Emby have been saying that for years. In fact only last night, we were discussing M theory and hypothesising a 26 dimension universe. Honest.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11161493
Good Ol Stephen, despite his limitations, he is still able to flip the finger up at the god squads
Would an able-bodied scientist get this amount of fawning attention?
Ah, Stephen Hawking. The man who can not possibly be wrong about anything because he is severely disabled and uses a voice synthesizer.
Would an able-bodied scientist get this amount of fawning attention?
Einstein, Newton, Prof Brian Cox (my wife fawns over him all the time)........
Yes, if they scaled the same heights of genius as Stephen Hawking.
Well, quite.
Is this supposed to be news?
I despair.
Stephen Hawking is an intellectual powerhouse. One of the greatest theoretical physicits to have walked the planet. I think he knows his stuff.
I assume you are educated in Mr Hawkins line of Science to be able to suggest he is respected only because of his disability?
Marie Curie (two Nobel prizes for physics), Nobel himself, Charles Darwin, Louis Pasteur, Archimedes, Leonardo da Vinci, Kirill Kondratyev, Mikhail Lomonosov, Dmitri Mendeelev, Aleksandr Popov, Sofia Kovalevskaya, Galileo, Ivan Pavlov...the list goes on.
Of course he would Andy, the attention given to him has nothing to do with the fact he's disabled, it's because he's a genius. It's insulting to suggest otherwise, and deeply patronizing.
I smell a failed a scientist with a bitter overtone of jealousy.
I smell a god-botherer resentful of any contradiction to his beliefs. It's a bad state when the first line of defence is attack.
That report is extremely garbled, and says nothing that could either confirm or deny the existence of a creator definitively.
Status quo - we can't ultimately know either way.
Will read it.
Because they reject 'God' i would assume.
I'm not religious at all, but I get tired of the amount of media attention given to this man. Is he a genius? Who says?