[Bas]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnergyUnlimited', '
')My understanding of this issue suggest, that you will actually die, once there is no single history or "world" building our Multiverse left, where you are alive.
That means, that in the future there will be infinity of distinct quantum worlds, but non of them will include you being alive.

[MD]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dinopello', '.')..

That depends on what you believe 'understanding' something means. What do you think you understand?

[MD]

"....several things dovetailed in my mind, & at once it struck me, what quality went to form a Man of Achievement especially in Literature which Shakespeare possessed so enormously -- I mean NEGATIVE CAPABILITY, that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason -- " ~John Keats

I do believe Keats "got it".

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Shannymara', 'M')aybe in one of those alternate histories I stayed in physics and invented a teleporter like I originally planned. That would certainly have altered this board, I guess.

[Bas]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'C')ontradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor the lack of contradiction a sign of truth. - Blaise Pascal

[Jack]

You might wish to read "Beyond the broken gate" by Charles Graybar, and any of the books by Robert Monroe.

All pure speculation, of course. But amusing, in its way.

[MD]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Jack', '.')..
All pure speculation, of course. But amusing, in its way.

[dinopello]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MD', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dinopello', '.')..

That depends on what you believe 'understanding' something means. What do you think you understand?

[threadbear]

Yes, it seems like the universe is dreamed up. Consciousness is primary and uses objects and beings rather than just images to construct worlds.

The dreamed up beings (us) go on to dream our own dreams, co-creating our own worlds in accordance with the greater dream. when we begin to lucid dream, becoming director, rather than part players or actors in the dream, we have stepped outside of the dream consensus. The lucid dream gives us a glimpse of what it's like to be omnipotent. We then have to grapple with all of the obvious philosophical problems inherent in the state of having complete control. Complete control is what people are agitating for when they insist all of their prayers are answered. Quite naive.

What is the impact of illumination on a person's waking life? Some become infused with the idea that they can "create their own reality". This is nonsense and has created all kinds of absurdities, cruelties, and inanities, like the film "The Secret". Every act, every intent can be superceded by the greater Dreamer.

This is where studies of the quantum realm are going, in my not so humble opinion.

[Permanently_Baffled]

Am I understanding this right?

Is hawkins saying that there is billions of universe in existance , playing out all the different histories...

OR

Is he saying that there is only one universe , but we got where we are now via lots of other histories (like the beam of light that doesnt go straight from A to B, it goes from A to everywhere then to B?)

No wonder at school I was so shit at physics, this stuff blows your mind!!

[I_Like_Plants]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dinopello', 'Y')ou can view a lecture by Feynman on QED that he gave to either layman or undergrads in NZ.

Feynman - QED.

It's a lttle dated, but very interesting, and its Feynman!

[EnergyUnlimited]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('I_Like_Plants', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dinopello', 'Y')ou can view a lecture by Feynman on QED that he gave to either layman or undergrads in NZ.

Feynman - QED.

It's a lttle dated, but very interesting, and its Feynman!

[Ache]

The work of the Large Hadron Collider is crucial for the survival of humanity, according to Professor Stephen Hawking.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'P')rof Hawking said the £4.4bn machine, in which scientists are about to recreate conditions just after the Big Bang, is "vital if the human race is not to stultify and eventually die out."

And he sought to ease fears that the machine could have apocalyptic effects. "The world will not come to an end when the LHC turns on," Prof Hawking said, adding: "The LHC is absolutely safe."

Scientists at the CERN research centre in Switzerland are aiming to use the machine to gain a better understanding of the birth and structure of the universe, and to fill gaps in our knowledge of physics.

They hope that by recreating the moments after the Big Bang - the massive explosion thought to have created the universe - the experiment will make clearer what the universe is made of, what makes it expand and also to predict its future.

Prof Hawking, the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, said: "The LHC will increase the energy at which we can study particle interactions by a factor of four."

However, he doubts that the machine will have the power to unravel some of the universe's more elusive secrets such as the putative Higgs boson particle - thought to have given mass to all other particles.

Prof Hawking said he has placed a bet of $100 that the scientists won't find the Higgs boson - the so-called "God particle."

"Another discovery that we might make is superpartners, partners for all the particles we know ... they could make up the mysterious dark matter that holds galaxies together," he told BBC Radio 4.

"Whatever the LHC finds or fails to find, the results will tell us a lot about the structure of the universe," Prof Hawking added.

However he dismissed speculation that the world could be put in grave danger by the force of the experiment.

"The LHC is absolutely safe. If the collisions in the LHC produced a micro black hole - and this is unlikely - it would just evaporate away again, producing a correctoristic pattern of particles," he said.

"Collisions releasing greater energy occur millions of times a day in the earth's atmosphere and nothing terrible happens. The world will not come to an end when the LHC turns on."

However he pointed out that if the LHC were indeed to create minor black holes, his own work on the subject could be verified and he chould receive the highest acclaim in the field.

He said: "If the LHC were to produce little black holes, I don't think there is any doubt I would get a Nobel Prize, if they showed the properties I predict.

"However I think the the probability that the LHC has enough energy to produce little black holes is less than 1 per cent - so I'm not holding my breath."

Asked whether the results of the LHC experiment would offer immediate practical benefits for our day-to-day lives, Prof Hawking urged patience.

He said: "Throughout history, people have studied pure science from a desire to understand the universe, rather than practical applications for commercial gain. But their discoveries later turned out to have great practical benefits.

"It is difficult to see an economic return from research at the LHC, but that doesn't mean there wont be any."

Prof Hawking made clear that the LHC project is one of the most important in the history of scientific endeavour. Asked to choose between it and the space program, he said: "That is like asking which of my children I would choose to sacrifice.

"Both the LHC and the Space program are vital if the human race is not to stultify and eventually die out. Together they cost less than one tenth of a per cent of world GDP. If the human race can not afford this, then it doesn't deserve the epithet 'human'."

[PonyBoy78]

Well.. it's on. And we're still here.

(or are we..?)

[POAlex]

There is a prophecy about the bottomless pit in the Book of Revelation. "And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit. And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit. And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power. And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads. And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man. And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them." (Revelation 9:1-6)

[keehah]

Cosmos meets Aether. I'll meet your 1 3 7 and raise it: 2 8 20 ...
blazelabs.com/f-p-magic.asp

[mos6507]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('POAlex', 'T')here is a prophecy about the bottomless pit in the Book of Revelation.

[paimei01]

I don't know in what world Hawkins lives. Vital for humanity is to wake up. A child raised by wolves or monkeys will behave like a wolf or a monkey. A child raised by apes with nuclear weapons, space stations and hadron colliders will behave like them. See the Stanford experiment.

[Carlhole]

Stephen Hawking: "Humans Have Entered a New Stage of Evolution"

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')lthough It has taken homo sapiens several million years to evolve from the apes, the useful information in our DNA, has probably changed by only a few million bits. So the rate of biological evolution in humans, Stephen Hawking points out in his Life in the Universe lecture, is about a bit a year.

"By contrast," Hawking says, "there are about 50,000 new books published in the English language each year, containing of the order of a hundred billion bits of information. Of course, the great majority of this information is garbage, and no use to any form of life. But, even so, the rate at which useful information can be added is millions, if not billions, higher than with DNA."

This means Hawking says that we have entered a new phase of evolution. "At first, evolution proceeded by natural selection, from random mutations. This Darwinian phase, lasted about three and a half billion years, and produced us, beings who developed language, to exchange information..."