Stephen Hawking Says Universe Created from Nothing

mr_3ntropy writes "Speaking to a sold out crowd at the Berkeley Physics Oppenheimer Lecture, Hawking said yesterday that he now believes the universe spontaneously popped into existence from nothing. He said more work is needed to prove this but we have time because 'Eternity is a very long time, especially towards the end.' There is also a Webcast available (Realplayer or Real Alternative required)."

Sounds like...

[ArcherB]

Sounds like his speech was Much Ado About Nothing

Pfft - yeah right.

[charlesbakerharris]

If that were true, how did the earth end up sitting on the back of a giant turtle? And where did all the other turtles that *they're* sitting on come from?

Hawking is such a hack.

Pfft

[voice_of_all_reason]

That's not how it really happened... But when they were come into the Void, Ilúvatarr said to them: 'Behold your Music!' And he showed them a vision, giving to them sight where before was only hearing; and they saw a new World made visible before them, and it was globed amid the Void, and it was sustained therein, but was not of it.

Sounds like...

[Arclight17]

It sounds to me like someone just discovered the Burger Joint at the Beginning of the Universe.

Many thanks to Douglas Adams.

I hope it's true...

[DoofusOfDeath]

It would add some credibility when I tell my girlfriend that the porn in my browser history came ex nihilo.

God to Hawking:

[guruevi]

In this house we obey the law of thermodynamics.

What Is Eternity?

[Eradicator2k3]

What is eternity? You're on the checkout line at a supermarket. There are seven people in front of you. They are all old. They all have two carts and coupons for every item. They are all paying by check. None of them have ID. It's the checkout girl's first day on the job. She doesn't speak any English. Take away fifteen minutes from that, and you begin to get an idea of what eternity is.

Thank you, Emo Philips.

Celebrity view

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe we could ask Paris Hilton, too.
Among celebrity experts she is most definitely the biggest authority on the science of creating something from nothing.

Re:Pfft

[sarathmenon]

Ah, so you are the guy who sends me all that literature spam.

In the beginning....

[PPH]

...there was nothing. Then, God said, "Let there be light".

And there was still nothing, but at least you could see it.

Re:Pfft - yeah right.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's turtles all the way down my friend!

Re:What Is Eternity?

[tempestdata]

To which you could add, "and you have to pee real bad"

Eternity

[Lev13than]

"Eternity is a very long time, especially towards the end."

Sure, it may feel like an eternity, but that's what it takes to get a decent table at Milliways.

The paradox of Faith

[Original Replica]

" I'll never be able to prove it, but I know I'm right".

There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda

It would seem you have backed yourself into a corner here.

Re:I hope it's true...

[chanrobi]

... my girlfriend ...

Your credibility just went to zero :)

Re:Worthless link

[lbmouse]

"Do we have to listen to the webcast to get any of the good stuff?"

Why don't you listen to it and let us know.

Re:so

[Kaenneth]

universe spontaneously popped into existence from nothing.
So how long till it pops out of existence?
In about 2 secon

Re:what the....

[GoodbyeBlueSky1]

Is he joking or is he serious?

Good question. It's quite difficult to tell when Hawking is being sarcastic. Maybe he should start using <sarcasm> tags during speeches like this.

Re:Not really

[jazman_777]

Real scientists...

Right, Maxwell, Newton, Pascal, Kepler, Faraday, etc. I'm sure you wouldn't descend from your lofty perch to talk to such as these.

Re:Pfft - yeah right.

[Conspiracy_Of_Doves]

The turtle isn't sitting on anything else. It's swimming through space. And don't forget the four elephants on its back whose backs the world is sitting on.

REAL AUDIO?

[BillGod]

couldnt they just give you the text and let windows text to speech engine say it? It would almost be like if you were there!

You sure about that?

[jdbartlett]

Sounds pretty monumental to me:

"Stephen Hawking Says Universe Created"

Re:Pfft - yeah right.

[rubycodez]

slight correction, after all these years and years of eternity, no doubt the turtle is swimming through elephant poop

hasn't been said yet

[Eccles]

the universe spontaneously popped into existence from nothing

This made a lot of people very angry, and has been widely regarded as a bad idea.--Douglas Adams

Ve believe in nossing!

[Rob T Firefly]

Ve are nihilists, Lebowski!

Re:Pfft - yeah right.

[kalirion]

"There was, for example, the theory that A'Tuin had come from nowhere and would continue at a uniform crawl, or steady gait, into nowhere, for all time. This theory was popular among academics. An alternative, favoured by those of a religious persuasion, was that A'Tuin was crawling from the Birthplace to the Time of Mating, as were all the stars in the sky which were, obviously, also carried by giant turtles. When they arrived they would briefly and passionately mate, for the first and only time, and from that fiery union new turtles would be born to carry a new pattern of worlds. This was known as the Big Bang hypothesis."

- Terry Pratchett, The Color of Magic

Re:I hope it's true...

[kalirion]

Your credibility just went to zero :)

Please, his girlfriend obviously spontaneously appeared out of nothing.

Re:hmmm, sorta like God, eh?

[richie2000]

Bah. You can't even prove to me that I exist. Philosophical empiricists, help me out here.

Hell no, you're on your own.

Re:Pfft - yeah right.

[rayde]

for those of you out there who are missing the funny [wikipedia.org]..

A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the Earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the centre of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy.

At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise."

The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?"

"You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down!"

Re:This is old news.

[Dunbal]

Hawking is just a little late jumping on the bandwagon

      I doubt very much that Dr. Hawking is jumping ANYWHERE, you insensitive clod! :P

Re:What Is Eternity? (relative)

[gosand]

The extremely attractive girl in line behind you strikes up a conversation with you. You notice that she is buying a 12 pack of really good micro-brew, has some motorcycle and tattoo magazines, and Computer Shopper. She tells you that she is in for a long night, because her computer has been acting up, and she really needs to make updates to her website where she is a tattoo/motorcycle model. She was planning on sitting at home all alone with some good beer and a computer shopper to try to find a new computer. Just as she asks if you could help her out, the checkout girl says "SIR!" and you realize it is your turn to check out. Where did the time go?

That is the theory of relativity in action. :)

Re:Pfft - yeah right.

[djh101010]

It's turtles all the way down my friend!

Bah! It's all ball bearings these days...

Hawking's conversation with George Costanza

[mcwop]

HAWKING: Well, they want me to come up with an idea. On the creation of the Universe, I don't have any ideas.

GEORGE: Come on, how hard is that? Look at all the junk science these days. You want an idea? Here's an idea. A higher being, of incomprehensible power created it.

Hawking: Scientists don't like the idea of higher beings.

GEORGE: But it is a being of incomprehensible power.

HAWKING: That is not for everybody.

GEORGE: I know, but it's incomprehensible

HAWKING: That would make me look like such a schmuck.

GEORGE: All right, forget that idea, it's not for you....Okay, okay, I got it. How about the Universe is created from nothing? Every scientist tries to make it about something, how about making this about nothing?

HAWKING: Yeah and...?

GEORGE: And people say hey it's about nothing, they look at their meaningless lives, and sort of just agree.

I was talking to my daughter

[theendlessnow]

I went shopping with my daughter. She said, "Nothing is on sale."

We went home. Now I wish we had bought some while it was on sale.

I guess the Hindus were right then

[athloi]

About the universe waking up from nothingness, and creating itself. This means we could have skipped 2,000 years of religious wars, standardized on Hinduism, made it Open Source and still had the New Age movement with its interesting drugs.

Re:Jumping the Shark

[Dunbal]

At what point do we stop looking at Hawking as some demigod genius, and realize that he has gone absolutely crackers?

      At the point where he decides to push everyone out of the spaceship [slashdot.org] and fly to Jupiter...

Re:Eternity

[Anne_Nonymous]

"Eternity is a very long time, especially towards the end."

I think we've all sat through a few lectures like that.

Re:Eternity

[bjelkeman]

"The first ten million years were the worst, and the second ten million years, they were the worst too. The third ten million I didn't enjoy at all. After that I went into a bit of a decline." - Marvin

Sounds like eternety can be quite long even at the beginning.

Sounds like he's starting to believe

[paranode]

May he be touched by His noodly appendage. Ramen.

Re:hmmm, sorta like God, eh?

[Red Flayer]

He thinks, therefore he am.

And what the hell is a philosophical empiricist? How would one test a philosophical theory?

Philosopher: I think, therefore I am.
Empiricist clocks philosopher upside the head and knocks him out cold
Empiricist: Nope. Still there.

Since empirical and philosophical are mutually exclusive, one would think that if an philosophical empiricist existed, we would enter some kind of twilight zone where military intelligence would make sense...

Re:REAL AUDIO?

[shipbrick]

use Dr. Sbaitso

Re:REAL AUDIO?

[TheoMurpse]

couldnt they just give you the text and let windows text to speech engine say it?

In related news, Stephen Hawking has written a letter to his relative discussing the future of the universe: "Dear Aunt, Kill Delete Select All".

Re:Eternity

[FernandoBR]

Ok, but human stupidity beats them both any day of the week.

Re:REAL AUDIO?

[ArcherB]

Actually, I heard Hawking as the voice for the National Weather Service in our area. He reads the weather report while the radar is looping on Time Warner Cable channel 43.

Re:Pfft - yeah right.

[grammar fascist]

At the bottom, though, is Siva (or Visnu or Krsna or Durga or Brahman or....).

I thought it was Chuck Norris.

Re:You can't get something for nothing

[Creepy Crawler]

Universe halted.

Hit F1 to continue.

Re:Try again.

[JonathanBoyd]

Please explain to me how you manage to deal with the omnipotent-benevolent problem

God defeated evil on the cross and Jesus will return.

10 words, not even 10 seconds.

The Bible-Physics Edition

[yogurtforthesoul]

In the beginning when God created the Up Quark, the Down Quark, the Top Quark, the Bottom Quark; then the Charm Quark, the Strange Quark; also he made the Tau Neutrino, the Muon Neutrino, the Electron Neutrino. Then he saw that the mattercules where good. Then he made the number one, and separated it from 0. Then he made Latin so that he could coax the rest of the crap made from nothing...

Obl. Seinfeld

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, it's a universe, about nothing! Nothing? That's right, Nothing! For example, what did you do today? Created a black hole. See, that's an episode...