Hawking: Essential to colonise space

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A December 14, 2011 photo shows Stephen Hawking in his office at the University of Cambridge. — AFP

World-renowned theoretical physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking, who will turn 70 on Sunday, has said that humans will have to colonise space soon to avoid catastrophes like a nuclear war or global warming.
The Cambridge University is celebrating Prof. Hawking’s birthday with a public symposium on Sunday, where he will give a speech on “The State of the Universe”.
Prof. Hawking is one of the longest-surviving sufferers of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, which has left him almost completely paralysed, and he is wheelchair-bound and speaks with the aid of a voice synthesiser.
He developed the disease as a student at Cambridge University when he was 21 years old and was not expected to survive for more than a couple of years.
“I think it is almost certain that a disaster such as nuclear war or global warming will befall the Earth within a thousand years. It is essential that we colonise space,” he said in an interview to BBC’s Radio 4 today programme, conducted to mark his 70th birthday.
He predicted that humans will eventually spread across the universe. “I believe that we will eventually establish self-sustaining colonies on Mars and other bodies in the Solar System although probably not within the next 100 years. I am optimistic that progress in science and technology will eventually enable humans to spread beyond the Solar System and out into the far reaches of the universe.”
Prof. Hawking, who was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge till October 2009 and now is a professor emeritus at the university, said the discovery of intelligent life anywhere in the universe “would be the biggest scientific discovery ever.” However, he cautioned that “it would be very risky to attempt to communicate with an alien civilisation.”
“If aliens decided to visit us then the outcome might be similar to when Europeans arrived in the Americas. That did not turn out well for the Native Americans.,” he warned.
The 69-year-old cosmologist, who has written bestseller A Brief History of Time, said time is defined by universe, so the talk of time before the universe is like “asking for a point south of the South Pole.