[space] Stephen Hawking in His Own Words: Origin of the Universe

[mrk]

Many of us like space and anything to do with space so here's a very nice writeup on a lecture held by Hawking explaining a hell of a lot of stuff about the universe in a easy to digest way.

Extract:

We have made tremendous progress in cosmology in the last hundred years. The General Theory of Relativity, and the discovery of the expansion of the universe, shattered the old picture of an ever existing, and ever lasting universe. Instead, general relativity predicted that the universe, and time itself, would begin in the big bang. It also predicted that time would come to an end in black holes. The discovery of the cosmic microwave background, and observations of black holes, support these conclusions. This is a profound change in our picture of the universe, and of reality itself.

Full article from source

Mind still blown?

 

[mrk]

It's an awesome question I guess, I mean what purpose does the universe have for existing? it's a mind blowing question (sorry to repeat!).

 

[mrk]

There doesn't but if you look around you'll see that every single thing within the universe has a purpose once formed so it's only fair to assume that the universe itself has a purpose, surely? But then if the universe itself has a purpose that would indicate it in itself is part of a larger structure where this purpose comes from and then there's that structure itself, what purpose does that have? a structure beyond that structure maybe?


But then what p.....

 

[mrk]

I didn't mean on earth directly because what is on earth has no bearing on how the universe works, we're merely a spec, if even that. I meant as within the universe - as in comets, asteroids, stars, galaxies etc - they all have some kind of purpose don't they, be it to deposit ingredients that could start life on a planet's surface or to bring end to extinction to another.

The sun had no purpose, it now has a purpose because of our solar system forming and it itself from a totally random series of events (which is what the universe is) it's purpose (I guess you could say function...maybe purpose is too strong a word...) now is to keep our solar system running for the next few billion years.

Edit*

I guess we take the words purpose and function in different light