Chances are most people who think they know who Stephen Hawking is are actually thinking about actor Eddie Redmayne, whose Oscar-nominated performance drives The Theory of Everything. Awards bait aside, Hawking himself has resurfaced for comments made to Adaeze Uyanwah of California during a private tour of London’s Science Museum:
“Sending humans to the moon changed the future of the human race in ways that we don’t yet understand,” he said.
“It hasn’t solved any of our immediate problems on planet Earth, but it has given us new perspectives on them and caused us to look both outward and inward.
“I believe that the long term future of the human race must be space and that it represents an important life insurance for our future survival, as it could prevent the disappearance of humanity by colonising other planets.” (Via The Independent)
Uyanwah beat out thousands of other contestants for the chance to meet Hawking. The result? A celebrity scientist’s guided tour of how the human race is probably going to destroy itself, and what popular science fiction-driven ideas will help preserve the species.
Considering Hawking’s recent foray into the world of Facebook to understand “time sucks,” his apocalyptic notions of human civilization aren’t too surprising.
(Via The Independent)