From: Wade T. Smith (wade.t.smith@verizon.net)
Date: Thu 30 Jan 2003 - 17:02:25 GMT
The pithy center-
- Wade
****
'The Maxwell and Dirac equations, for example, "govern most of physics
and all of chemistry and biology," Hawking said. "So in principle we
should be able to predict human behavior, though I can't say I've had
much success myself," he said to chuckles from the audience.'
****
News Office
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, Massachusetts
JANUARY 23, 2003
Hawking muses on ultimate theory of the universe
In a live broadcast from England to several classrooms at MIT,
physicist Stephen Hawking described scientists' search for a complete
theory of the universe, ultimately concluding that "maybe [such a
theory] isn't possible."
"Some people will be very [disappointed] if there is not an ultimate
theory," Hawking said. "I belong to that camp, but I have changed my
mind." We will "always have the challenge of new discovery. Without it,
we will stagnate. Long may the search continue."
The broadcast, which was marred by technical problems with video and
especially audio, was also available as a webcast. It was sponsored by
the Cambridge-MIT Institute (CMI), a three-year-old strategic alliance
between the University of Cambridge in England and MIT. CMI's mission
is to deliver education and research that enhance the competitiveness
of U.K. business.
Hawking essentially gave a brief history of particle physics, focusing
on the key scientists and theories in the field from Aristotle to
Stephen Weinberg (a Nobel laureate born in 1933).
The Maxwell and Dirac equations, for example, "govern most of physics
and all of chemistry and biology," Hawking said. "So in principle we
should be able to predict human behavior, though I can't say I've had
much success myself," he said to chuckles from the audience.
"The human brain contains too many particles for us to do the equations
necessary to predict behavior," he continued. "We may someday be able
to predict the behavior of the nematode worm, however, which may be
comforting."
All of the theories developed so far to explain the universe "are both
inconsistent or incomplete," Hawking said. He went on to discuss why it
may not be possible to develop one complete theory of the universe,
basing his argument on the work of Kurt Gödel. The Czech mathematician
showed that within any branch of mathematics some propositions cannot
be proven true or false.
Hawking, author of the best-seller "A Brief History of Time," is the
Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge.
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