Brief Answers to the Big Questions

What Hacker News says

1. ar1nFeb 2019
   Brief Answers To The Big Questions by Stephen Hawking, both inspiring and terrifiying at the same time!
   thread
2. diehundeDec 2018
   Brief Answers to the Big Questions by Stephen Hawking[1]. Not only about cosmology but also about topics such as the existence of god, finding life in other planets, the future of the humanity and other very intriguing questions.

   [1] https://www.amazon.com/Brief-Answers-Questions-Stephen-Hawki...

   thread
3. myshpaMay 2023
   Noam Chomsky, an American linguist, philosopher, and political activist, once said, "If you're in a system where you must make profit in order to survive, you are compelled to ignore negative externalities, effects on others".

   https://thedecisionlab.com/reference-guide/economics/externa...

   Stephen Hawking criticized the economy for ignoring externalities, particularly in the context of climate change. In his book "Brief Answers to the Big Questions," Hawking wrote, "We are now learning that climate change is bringing with it not only changes to the physical environment but also to the way we think about economics. It is forcing us to recognize that many of the ways we have been measuring economic progress, based on the idea of unlimited growth, have been deeply flawed"

   Show morethread
4. westurnerApr 2022
   List of impact craters on Earth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_impact_craters_on_Eart...

   Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event (C-P or also K-Pg event) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous%E2%80%93Paleogene_e... :

   > A wide range of species perished in the K–Pg extinction, the best-known being the non-avian dinosaurs. It also destroyed myriad other terrestrial organisms, including some mammals, birds,[21] lizards,[22] insects,[23][24] plants, and all the pterosaurs.[25] In the oceans, the K–Pg extinction killed off plesiosaurs and mosasaurs and devastated teleost fish,[26] sharks, mollusks (especially ammonites, which became extinct), and many species of plankton. It is estimated that 75% or more of all species on Earth vanished.[27] Yet the extinction also provided evolutionary opportunities: in its wake, many groups underwent remarkable adaptive radiation—sudden and prolific divergence into new forms and species within the disrupted and emptied ecological niches. Mammals in particular diversified in the Paleogene,[28] evolving new forms such as horses, whales, bats, and primates. The surviving group of dinosaurs were avians, ground and water fowl who radiated into all modern species of bird.[29] Teleost fish,[30] and perhaps lizards[22] also radiated.

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-Earth_object :

   > A near-Earth object (NEO) is any small Solar System body whose orbit brings it into proximity with Earth. By convention, a Solar System body is a NEO if its closest approach to the Sun (perihelion) is less than 1.3 astronomical units (AU).[2] If a NEO's orbit crosses the Earth's, and the object is larger than 140 meters (460 ft) across, it is considered a potentially hazardous object (PHO).[3] Most known PHOs and NEOs are asteroids, but a small fraction are comets. [1]

   Asteroid impact avoidance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_impact_avoidance :

   > In 2016, a NASA scientist warned that the Earth is unprepared for such an event.[3] In April 2018, the B612 Foundation reported "It's 100 percent certain we'll be hit by a devastating asteroid, but we're not 100 percent sure when."[4] Also in 2018, physicist Stephen Hawking, in his final book, Brief Answers to the Big Questions, considered an asteroid collision to be the biggest threat to the planet. [5][6][7] Several ways of avoiding an asteroid impact have been described.[8] Nonetheless, in March 2019, scientists reported that asteroids may be much more difficult to destroy than thought earlier.[9][10] In addition, an asteroid may reassemble itself due to gravity after being disrupted.[11] In May 2021, NASA astronomers reported that 5 to 10 years of preparation may be needed to avoid a virtual impactor based on a simulated exercise conducted by the 2021 Planetary Defense Conference. [12][13][14]

   - Nkalakatha the "#megamaser" (2022) https://www.sciencealert.com/extreme-megamaser-discovered-sh... ... (Can we harvest or collect and point - or pull against - such energy sources which are already present, using a minimum pertubative force in n-body idk QFT+QG fields in order to effectively read and write to points in stochastic spacetime, which is presumably all embedded in the horizon disc of one or more microscopic and larger black holes?)

   Can a train of multiple solar collector + sails + lasers exceed (c + nlimit_approaching_c, or does that warp spacetime for NEOs, over their net effective path through spacetime?

   - A QG Quantum Gravity duality for idk Gravitational lensing > Explanation in terms of spacetime curvature: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_lens

   Claimed moons of Earth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claimed_moons_of_Earth

   >

   Although the Moon is Earth's only natural satellite, there are a number of near-Earth objects (NEOs) with orbits that are in resonance with Earth. These have been called "second" moons of Earth. [3]*

   > 469219 Kamoʻoalewa, an asteroid discovered on 27 April 2016, is possibly the most stable quasi-satellite of Earth.[4] As it orbits the Sun, 469219 Kamoʻoalewa appears to circle around Earth as well. It is too distant to be a true satellite of Earth, but is the best and most stable example of a quasi-satellite, a type of near-Earth object. They appear to orbit a point other than Earth itself, such as the orbital path of the NEO asteroid 3753 Cruithne. Earth trojans, such as 2010 TK7, are NEOs that orbit the Sun (not Earth) on the same orbital path as Earth, and appear to lead or follow Earth along the same orbital path.

   > Other small natural objects in orbit around the Sun may enter orbit around Earth for a short amount of time, becoming temporary natural satellites. As of 2020, the only confirmed examples have been 2006 RH120 in Earth orbit during 2006 and 2007,[1] and 2020 CD3 in Earth orbit between 2018 and 2020. [5][6]

   ʻOumuamua from ~Vega (2017)?: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CA%BBOumuamua

   Show morethread
5. jqpabc123Feb 2022
   It's been a while --- but most scientists consider a significant asteroid strike to be a near certainty --- they just can't say when. Based on *known* asteroids, the probability by 2300 has been calculated at about 1 in 2000.

   But don't relax just yet, we find previously unknown asteroids all the time. Just last year, one (2021 UA1) flew by Antarctica undetected until after it has passed at a distance of about 1400 miles.

   But even if we detect one, there is no real working plan in place to try and deflect it. Thanks NASA --- this is why we give you the big bucks!

   Physicist Stephen Hawking, in his final book, Brief Answers to the Big Questions, considered an asteroid collision to be the single biggest threat to the planet.

   Show morethread
6. lordgrenvilleApr 2020
   Possibly relevant quote from Stephen Hawking, Brief Answers to the Big Questions (talking about the early '60s):

   "The prevailing attitude at Oxford at that time was very anti-work. You were supposed to be brilliant without effort, or to accept your limitations and get a fourth-class degree. I took this as an invitation to do very little. I’m not proud of this, I’m just describing my attitude at the time, shared by most of my fellow students."

   Show morethread