Hawking's Brief Answers to the Big Questions: Doomsday Earth?

Summary: Doomsday Earth gets seventh place among 10 questions that theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking gathers into Brief Answers to the Big Questions.

Stephen Hawking notes that Earthlings may possibly escape from Doomsday Earth, but "The same of course may not be possible for the millions of other species that inhabit the Earth, and that will be on our conscience as a race;" Noah's Ark, 1846 oil on canvas by American Quaker folk painter Edward Hicks (April 4, 1780-Aug. 23, 1849); Philadelphia Museum of Art: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Doomsday Earth angles into seventh place amid the 10 questions asked and answered by a world-renowned theoretical physicist for a posthumous publication, acknowledged as his last, by Bantam Books Oct. 15, 2018.

Chapter 7 on "Will We Survive on Earth?" blends Doomsday Earth into Stephen Hawking's (Jan. 8, 1942-March 14, 2018) book Brief Answers to the Big Questions. Physicists for the January 2018 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists calculated the Doomsday Clock of economic, environmental, military and political catastrophe at two minutes to midnight in January 2018. The symbolic Doomsday Clock dates to June 1947, when its seven minutes to midnight discerned Doomsday Earth after World War II (Sept. 1, 1939-Sept. 2, 1945).

The author of A Brief History of Time, A Briefer History of Time and the former's illustrated edition eschews economic and social marginalization and political instability.

Doomsday Earth follows from world government-industrial-military complexes flouting the consequences of fostering solvable deforestation, disease, drought, extinction, famine, global warming, overpopulation, overproduction, polar meltdowns and war.

Greenhouse effects from unreflected solar energy and unsequestered carbon dioxide give Doomsday Earth sulphuric acid rain and Venus-like temperatures at 250 degrees Celsius (482 degrees Fahrenheit). A violent universe's laws of physics and probability hurtle huge asteroids against Doomsday Earth still hurting from Chernobyl April 25-26, 1986, and Fukushima March 11, 2011. Environmental catastrophe or nuclear terrorism, confrontation or accident, such as Japan's and Russia's seven and 32 years ago, is imminent sometime within the next 1,000 years.

Doomsday Earth jeopardizes millions of species without whom un-Noah-like humankind, who junk sentient animals, especially cats, journey to habitable planets before environmental catastrophe joins nuclear disaster.

A violent universe's laws of physics and probability knell midnight on the Doomsday Clock for Doomsday Earth from preventable anti-environmentalism and war-mongering and unpreventable asteroid collisions.

Political will and scientific and technological illiteracy outside government-industrial-military complexes lag Doomsday Earth behind Moon-Jupiter flights from lunar bases in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Fictionalized futures since Herbert George Wells (Sept. 21, 1866-Aug. 13, 1946) manifest static, scientifically and technologically literate, steady-state societies even though scientific technology realistically moves around. Scientific technology needs to nestle infinite-energy, infinite-history, infinite-space, infinite-time quantum mechanics and single-history, space-time general relativity within one complete unified theory within 100 to 1,000 years.

Max Planck's (April 23, 1858-Oct. 4, 1947) quantum theory offers particle scales of 100,000 billion billion billionth of a millimeter for mathematical equations and particle accelerators.

The complete theory of currently contradictory, ultimately unifiable general relativity and quantum mechanics presents Doomsday Earth humankind survival smarts among the violent universe's infinite-dimension, infinite-energy particles.

Complete theories queue up space exploration for space colonization away from Doomsday Earth even as genetic engineering qualifies as super-accelerated biological evolution into enhanced superhuman beings. Genetic engineering realizes pathogen- and pest-resistant edible plants and, perhaps within 1,000 years, redesigned superhumans for apocalyptic Doomsday Earth; cold, irradiated space; light-speed travel; unearthly exoplanets. Scientific and technological developments to stop the Doomsday Clock suggest respectively sophisticated biological and electronic systems for human and computer survival on and off Doomsday Earth.

Doomsday Earth perhaps tenders humankind 100 to 1,000 years to turn back climate change, turn down greenhouse effects, turn off nuclear weapons and turn up exoplanets.

Stephen Hawking foresees an "almost inevitable" crippling of Earth by "a nuclear confrontation or environmental catastrophe" in the next 1,000 years; mushroom cloud from Castle Romeo nuclear test, conducted 1954 on barge in Castle Bravo crater, Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands; Saturday, March 27, 1954: United States Department of Energy, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Stephen Hawking notes that Earthlings may possibly escape from Doomsday Earth, but "The same of course may not be possible for the millions of other species that inhabit the Earth, and that will be on our conscience as a race;" Noah's Ark, 1846 oil on canvas by American Quaker folk painter Edward Hicks (April 4, 1780-Aug. 23, 1849); Philadelphia Museum of Art: Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Edward_Hicks,_American_-_Noah%27s_Ark_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg

Stephen Hawking foresees an "almost inevitable" crippling of Earth by "a nuclear confrontation or environmental catastrophe" in the next 1,000 years; mushroom cloud from Castle Romeo nuclear test, conducted 1954 on barge in Castle Bravo crater, Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands; Saturday, March 27, 1954: United States Department of Energy, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Castle_Romeo.jpg

For further information:

Hawking, Stephen. 1996. The Illustrated A Brief History of Time. Updated and Expanded Edition. New York NY: Bantam Books.

Hawking, Stephen. 1998. A Brief History of Time. Updated and Expanded. Tenth Anniversary Edition. New York NY: Bantam Books.

Hawking, Stephen; with Leonard Mlodinow. 2008. A Briefer History of Time: The Science Classic Made More Accessible. New York NY: Bantam Books.

Hawking, Stephen. 2018. "[Chapter] 7: Will We Survive on Earth?" Brief Answers to the Big Questions. New York NY: Bantam Books.

Marriner, Derdriu. 18 October 2018. "Hawking's Brief Answers to the Big Questions: Scientific Literacy." Earth and Space News. Thursday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2018/10/hawkings-brief-answers-to-big-questions.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 25 October 2018. "Brief Answers to Big Questions: Divine Creation, Scientific Creation?" Earth and Space News. Thursday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2018/10/brief-answers-to-big-questions-divine.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 1 November 2018. "Cosmological Beginnings in Hawking's Brief Answers to Big Questions." Earth and Space News. Thursday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2018/11/cosmological-beginnings-in-hawkings.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 8 November 2018. "Intelligent Life in Stephen Hawking's Brief Answers to Big Questions." Earth and Space News. Thursday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2018/11/intelligent-life-in-stephen-hawkings.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 15 November 2018. "Hawking's Brief Answers to the Big Questions: Predictable Futures?" Earth and Space News. Thursday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2018/11/hawkings-brief-answers-to-big-questions.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 22 November 2018. "Hawking's Brief Answers to the Big Questions: Black Hole Interiors." Earth and Space News. Thursday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2018/11/hawkings-brief-answers-to-big-questions_22.html

Marriner, Derdriu 29 November 2018. "Hawking's Brief Answers to the Big Questions: Is Time Travel Possible?" Earth and Space News. Thursday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2018/11/hawkings-brief-answers-to-big-questions_29.html