Stephen Hawking says we could destroy the universe

By Malarie Gokey Published September 24, 2014

physicist_stephen_hawking — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Stephen Hawking is worried that technology and science may be getting out of hand. The noted physicist recently warned that artificial intelligence and aliens pose a serious threat to the human race and planet Earth, but now he’s concerned that the so-called “God particle” or Higgs Boson could become unstable and destroy the entire universe.

Scientists discovered the Higgs Boson during experiments in Switzerland with the CERN Large Hadron Collider. The particle was named after British physicist Peter Higgs, who predicted its existence in 1964. The discovery was key in explaining why objects have mass.

Recommended Videos

Related: Artificial Intelligence could be worse than nukes, says Tesla CEO Elon Musk

Hawking was skeptical of its existence from the start and was disappointed by its discovery, saying that physics is less interesting now. After much thought, Hawking now believes that the God particle is dangerous. He expressed his view in a preface to a new book called “Starmus.”

“The Higgs potential has the worrisome feature that it might become metastable at energies above 100bn gigaelectronvolts (GeV),” he wrote. “This could mean that the universe could undergo catastrophic vacuum decay, with a bubble of the true vacuum expanding at the speed of light. This could happen at any time and we wouldn’t see it coming.”

However, Hawking acknowledged that this catastrophe isn’t likely to happen any time soon. After all, scientists would have to build a particle collider larger than Earth itself to reach 100bn GeV and thereby destroy the universe.

Topics

Emerging Tech

Former Digital Trends Contributor

As DT's Mobile Editor, Malarie runs the Mobile and Wearables sections, which cover smartphones, tablets, smartwatches, and…

Cars

Range Rover’s first electric SUV has 48,000 pre-orders

Land Rover Range Rover Velar SVAutobiography Dynamic Edition

Range Rover, the brand made famous for its British-styled, luxury, all-terrain SUVs, is keen to show it means business about going electric.

And, according to the most recent investor presentation by parent company JLR, that’s all because Range Rover fans are showing the way. Not only was demand for Range Rover’s hybrid vehicles up 29% in the last six months, but customers are buying hybrids “as a stepping stone towards battery electric vehicles,” the company says.

Cars

BYD’s cheap EVs might remain out of Canada too

BYD Han

With Chinese-made electric vehicles facing stiff tariffs in both Europe and America, a stirring question for EV drivers has started to arise: Can the race to make EVs more affordable continue if the world leader is kept out of the race?

China’s BYD, recognized as a global leader in terms of affordability, had to backtrack on plans to reach the U.S. market after the Biden administration in May imposed 100% tariffs on EVs made in China.

Cars

Tesla posts exaggerate self-driving capacity, safety regulators say

Beta of Tesla's FSD in a car.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is concerned that Tesla’s use of social media and its website makes false promises about the automaker’s full-self driving (FSD) software.
The warning dates back from May, but was made public in an email to Tesla released on November 8.
The NHTSA opened an investigation in October into 2.4 million Tesla vehicles equipped with the FSD software, following three reported collisions and a fatal crash. The investigation centers on FSD’s ability to perform in “relatively common” reduced visibility conditions, such as sun glare, fog, and airborne dust.
In these instances, it appears that “the driver may not be aware that he or she is responsible” to make appropriate operational selections, or “fully understand” the nuances of the system, NHTSA said.
Meanwhile, “Tesla’s X (Twitter) account has reposted or endorsed postings that exhibit disengaged driver behavior,” Gregory Magno, the NHTSA’s vehicle defects chief investigator, wrote to Tesla in an email.
The postings, which included reposted YouTube videos, may encourage viewers to see FSD-supervised as a “Robotaxi” instead of a partially automated, driver-assist system that requires “persistent attention and intermittent intervention by the driver,” Magno said.
In one of a number of Tesla posts on X, the social media platform owned by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, a driver was seen using FSD to reach a hospital while undergoing a heart attack. In another post, a driver said he had used FSD for a 50-minute ride home. Meanwhile, third-party comments on the posts promoted the advantages of using FSD while under the influence of alcohol or when tired, NHTSA said.
Tesla’s official website also promotes conflicting messaging on the capabilities of the FSD software, the regulator said.
NHTSA has requested that Tesla revisit its communications to ensure its messaging remains consistent with FSD’s approved instructions, namely that the software provides only a driver assist/support system requiring drivers to remain vigilant and maintain constant readiness to intervene in driving.
Tesla last month unveiled the Cybercab, an autonomous-driving EV with no steering wheel or pedals. The vehicle has been promoted as a robotaxi, a self-driving vehicle operated as part of a ride-paying service, such as the one already offered by Alphabet-owned Waymo.
But Tesla’s self-driving technology has remained under the scrutiny of regulators. FSD relies on multiple onboard cameras to feed machine-learning models that, in turn, help the car make decisions based on what it sees.
Meanwhile, Waymo’s technology relies on premapped roads, sensors, cameras, radar, and lidar (a laser-light radar), which might be very costly, but has met the approval of safety regulators.