Hawking: No 'Theory of Everything' 465
Flash Modin writes "In a Scientific American essay based on their new book A Grand Design, Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow are now claiming physicists may never find a theory of everything. Instead, they propose a 'family of interconnected theories' might emerge, with each describing a certain reality under specific conditions. The claim is a reversal for Hawking, who claimed in 1980 that there would be a unified theory by the turn of the century."
Tsk tsk! (Score:1, Funny)
Oblig (Score:4, Funny)
unified theory by the turn of the century (Score:5, Funny)
I think the turn of the century reversed his claim for him.
Re:Past His Prime (Score:5, Funny)
It seems like he's been saying stuff recently just to say stuff.
Totally. He just likes to hear his own voice.
Excuse me, Dr. Hawking? (Score:5, Funny)
I'm right here. I promise I do exist. Really.
Re:Excuse me, Dr. Hawking? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Celebrity physicist troll train (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Celebrity physicist troll train (Score:3, Funny)
It's about time they rethink this artificial theoretical/experimental barrier if all the "theories" being cooked up are so far out of the realm of verification that they might as well move to philosophy department.
Maybe they should call themselves theoretical metaphysicists....
Re:Oblig (Score:5, Funny)
You know, it's no longer necessary to actually link to xkcd from /.
Just mention the number.
We'll laugh just as hard.
Re:Past His Prime (Score:5, Funny)
Just invent a one-way time machine. Then you could mate with all the women you wanted when men become scarce (after the giraffes have long since ceased to rule the planet) then move forward in time, wait for the last photon to decay, see the Big Bang take place, take a potshot at Hitler and as the current time approaches, slow down enough to see the comments appearing, wait for someone else to make the joke then mod them up!
Of course you have to hope this universe isn't 10' higher than the previous universe.
In other news... (Score:5, Funny)
When asked what the implications were as to whether or not there could ever be a Stephen Hawking, ToE replied "The door is open for a Stephen Hawking in the future, but it can only be a possibility if graphene birds fly out of my lily white butt..."
Re:Celebrity physicist troll train (Score:5, Funny)
I mean, it wouldn't it be surprising if they were given advanced degrees like "Doctor of Philosophy" or something like that?
Re:Excuse me, Dr. Hawking? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:unified theory by the turn of the century (Score:3, Funny)
It depends how fast he was moving relative to the calendar he was referring to.
Re:Oblig (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Past His Prime (Score:3, Funny)
Well, wikipedia didn't list his papers.
What about Dr. Cooper's work? (Score:5, Funny)
I've been watching documentaries about Dr Sheldon Cooper's work out at Caltech and I'm lead to believe that he's very close to proving String Theory as a Grand Unified Theory.
Surely, Professor Hawking is aware of this research?
Re:Old news (Score:1, Funny)
no
Re:Oblig (Score:2, Funny)
Bonus points if your uid is funny.
Re:Wisdom from DS9 (Score:3, Funny)
UUID maths (Score:2, Funny)
Theory of Everything ( 696787 )
My mind would have been blown if his UUID was 42...
You may be onto something – adding each digit in his UUID (6 + 9 + 6 + 7 + 8 + 7) yields 43...
Of course, maybe it only equals 43 to us because of approximations in our generalised equations, but for him using his localised maths it's actually 42?