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viernes, junio 03, 2011

El cielo es un cuento de hadas


Afirma Stephen Hawking en su último libro, The grand design (reseñas en The Guardian y en Los Angeles Times), que no es necesario recurrir a la idea de un gran arquitecto o diseñador omnipotente para explicar la existencia del universo, las leyes de la física son suficientes para ello:
It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the Universe going...The Big Bang was a natural event which would have happened without the help or involvement of God... Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing... Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist..
No hay nada más allá del momento en que el cerebro vibra por última ocasión, nos dice Hawking: "I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark." Lo anterior, desde luego, ha ofendido a grupos religiosos.

Una teoría que explicara todo sería el triunfo mayor de la razón humana. Las esperanzas de Hawking están en la conocida como teoría M: "... a broad mathematical framework that encompasses string theory, which is regarded by many physicists as the best hope yet of developing a theory of everything.M-theory demands a universe with 11 dimensions, including a dimension of time and the three familiar spatial dimensions. The rest are curled up too small for us to see." Otra idea sugerente de Hawking es la que sostiene la posibilidad de que en el futuro mediato se lleguen a detectar sobre la luz "huellas digitales" o "residuos" de momentos anteriores del universo.

Adjunto parte de una breve entrevista al científico en The Guardian (Hawking sólo puede transmitir sus ideas mecanicamente, utilizando un músculo de su rostro para enviar señales a una computadora, hasta asociar palabras que expresen su mensaje. Esta condición obliga a que las entrevistas y conferencias se presenten después de mucho esfuerzo previo de su parte):
What is the value in knowing "Why are we here?
The universe is governed by science. But science tells us that we can't solve the equations, directly in the abstract. We need to use the effective theory of Darwinian natural selection of those societies most likely to survive. We assign them higher value.
You've said there is no reason to invoke God to light the blue touchpaper. Is our existence all down to luck?
Science predicts that many different kinds of universe will be spontaneously created out of nothing. It is a matter of chance which we are in.
So here we are. What should we do?
We should seek the greatest value of our action.
You had a health scare and spent time in hospital in 2009. What, if anything, do you fear about death?
I have lived with the prospect of an early death for the last 49 years. I'm not afraid of death, but I'm in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first. I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.
What are the things you find most beautiful in science?
Science is beautiful when it makes simple explanations of phenomena or connections between different observations. Examples include the double helix in biology, and the fundamental equations of physics.
Días después dictaría en Londres, en el Google Zeitgeist, la conferencia que se anexa en el video.

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