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Stephen Hawking and "Zero Gravity"



 
 
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  #1  
Old March 14th 18, 01:59 PM posted to sci.space.history
Stuf4
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Posts: 554
Default Stephen Hawking and "Zero Gravity"

I get a lot of push back on things I present here. One topic where loads of energy was invested has been on this notion of "Zero Gravity". SSH archives are loaded with these discussions.

Well today Stephen Hawking died. And he will be remembered as the foremost expert on gravity. Yet on his own website, he has for quite a long time listed a video which presents the title as "Zero Gravity Flight". You can see it for yourself right he

http://www.hawking.org.uk/videos.html

That video is a presentation by Peter Diamandis about Hawking's flight on the Zero-G plane, run by the company that Diamandis started with a NASA astronaut, with both of them having earned advanced degrees from MIT. These two guys actually named their company "Zero Gravity Corporation". And they even went so far as to host their homepage on this URL:

http://www.nogravity.com/

That's right. Two MIT guys offering "Zero Gravity" flights at NoGravity.com.

It is one thing for Peter Diamandis and Byron Lichtenberg to be clueless on what gravity is and what gravity isn't. But when Stephen Hawking buys into this and posts the video on his own website under the words "Zero Gravity Flight", then I'm left wondering how well Stephen Hawking himself understood gravity.

I'm actually quite sure that he did. So maybe the problem here is that he didn't care a lick about his own website. He let someone else run it, and he himself never looked at it.

I look forward to the day when NASA's astronauts gain a complete understanding that being in orbit is NOT zero gravity. A lot of progress has been made on this since first being raised here in this forum many years ago. "Zero Gravity Corporation" even stopped calling themselves that. Their airplane says "Zero-G" on the side, and they no longer use the URL nogravity.com. Their old URL won't even redirect you to their new URL. It was good to see this change happening in the months before Hawking's 2007 flight.

I myself believe that a healthier approach would be to own your past mistakes. It would be great if NoGravity.com would be a page that explains the distinction between the general concept of acceleration and gravity.

Stephen Hawking did not put much effort into educating the masses on this, as far as I saw. He apparently had more important things to do. And his life ended today with his website promoting this common fallacy about gravity.

There's still hope that the younger generation, including folks like Eddie Redmayne, will have a rock solid understanding that flying parabolas through the Earth's atmosphere or flying orbits around the Earth or Moon will never get the acceleration of gravity anywhere close to zero.

Surely Stephen Hawking knew this.
Even if his website didn't.

~ CT
  #2  
Old March 24th 18, 12:21 AM posted to sci.space.history
Fevric J. Glandules
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Posts: 181
Default Stephen Hawking and "Zero Gravity"

Stuf4 wrote:

snip "zero gravity"

Surely Stephen Hawking knew this.


He did.

Even if his website didn't.


It doesn't matter. I still call my vacuum cleaner "the hoover", even
though it was not made by Hoover.

  #3  
Old March 26th 18, 04:28 AM posted to sci.space.history
Scott M. Kozel[_2_]
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Posts: 160
Default Stephen Hawking and "Zero Gravity"

On Friday, March 23, 2018 at 7:21:21 PM UTC-4, Fevric J. Glandules wrote:
Stuf4 wrote:

snip "zero gravity"

Surely Stephen Hawking knew this.


He did.

Even if his website didn't.


It doesn't matter. I still call my vacuum cleaner "the hoover", even
though it was not made by Hoover.


Likewise you can say that you are "Hoovering the floor",
even though it was not made by Hoover.
  #4  
Old March 26th 18, 10:18 AM posted to sci.space.history
Stuf4
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Posts: 554
Default Stephen Hawking and "Zero Gravity"

From Scott M. Kozel:
On Friday, March 23, 2018 at 7:21:21 PM UTC-4, Fevric J. Glandules wrote:
Stuf4 wrote:

snip "zero gravity"

Surely Stephen Hawking knew this.


He did.

Even if his website didn't.


It doesn't matter. I still call my vacuum cleaner "the hoover", even
though it was not made by Hoover.


Likewise you can say that you are "Hoovering the floor",
even though it was not made by Hoover.


There's a HUGE difference between genericizing a brand name versus using words that indicate that you have a conceptual deficiency in understanding what you're talking about.

Let's say that you're the world's foremost expert on vacuum cleaners. And on your website there's this one video that says...

"Hoover Blows Floors Clean"

Those four words in that vid title serve as clear indication that whoever wrote it has a major conceptual deficiency in their understanding of how vacuum cleaners work.

To use 'Hoover' as a generic term is simply a matter of style, and I would readily agree that that part is no big deal. The problem is all contained in that second word. And using it calls into question whether or not you deserve the title/reputation of being this world's leading expert on vacuum cleaners.


Now back to Hawking...
It's very easy to imagine that he may have never visited his website. But the man had plenty of friends, and it is not easy to imagine that for all the years that this "Zero Gravity" video had been posted there, not a single one of them called this to his attention. Something like:

"Hey Stephen, you know the title of that video on your website says 'Zero Gravity Flight'. You might want to change that. And even better if you were to make a statement to educate the public on how this 'Zero Gravity' saying is utterly bogus."

Stephen Hawking never made any effort to that end, as far as I saw. And because he turned a blind eye to this, it becomes a huge black mark on this person who left earth with the reputation of understanding gravity better than most anyone else.

It shows the limits on how much he actually cared about educating the public.


And this problem is not limited to Stephen Hawking. Another person who is a current celebrity in science is Neil deGrasse Tyson. And he's got stuff on his own official website that shows he is absolutely clueless when it comes to a certain aspect of gravity in astrophysics. Yes, one of the foremost experts on astrophysics published something on his website that has been posted for a whole bunch of years that shows he does not understand a very basic situation in astrophysics. (This one has particular interest to the new Space Telescope set to launch next year.) This posting was written by his own hand, so here again severe limits of knowledge have been exposed.

This NdT thing deserves its own thread. I look forward to the day when he fixes his website. Hopefully in time before the new Space Telescope gets launched.


As for Stephen Hawking fixing his "Zero Gravity Flight" vid title on his website, he's out of time. Too late. It is now a permanent fixture that is part of his legacy showing the world how well he understood gravity and how much he cared about educating the public on what gravity is and what gravity is not.

~ CT
  #5  
Old March 27th 18, 03:31 AM posted to sci.space.history
Stuf4
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Posts: 554
Default Stephen Hawking and "Zero Gravity"

I wrote:
It shows the limits on how much he actually cared about educating the public.


And here is a video that shows the limits of how much Stephen Hawking cared about educating his own daughter:

'My Father, Stephen Hawking' (World Science Festival, June 14, 2009)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVVR4QyiqMc&t=5m16s

Quote:
"HERE HE IS FLOATING IN ZERO GRAVITY." -Lucy Hawking

She's speaking to this photo of her father Stephen Hawking on the Zero-G airplane flight:
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/RVVR4QyiqMc/maxresdefault.jpg


This leaves three possible explanations:
- Stephen Hawking himself had a deficient understanding of gravity,
- Stephen Hawking did not care enough to teach his own daughter very basic info about what gravity is and what gravity isn't, or
- Lucy Hawking DOES know that zero-g is not "zero gravity", but that she does not care about using accurate terminology.


This video of Hawking's daughter, taken together with that video title posted on his website, leads me to lean toward the middle conclusion.

Hawking died with a reputation for being a great educator. But these two videos stand as stark examples of his limits in caring about educating people on accurate physics.

This video here was posted to the WSF YouTube channel on Mar 18, 2015. As with his website's error, it is easy to imagine that there were people who contacted him to let him know about this erroneous statement made by his daughter. To the time of his death, this gave three years for a correction to be posted.

That was never done.

~ CT



____________________

Here is the entire video description appears today, with no correction:
(and no correction pinned in the comments section either)

======================
Published on Mar 18, 2015 · 3 years ago

Journalist and author Lucy Hawking describes what it was like to grow up with Stephen Hawking as a father. From his childhood—where his teachers didn't believe he would amount to anything—to his struggles with ALS, the disease that would take away his ability to move or speak on his own. But Lucy demonstrates that through it all, he persevered and became one of the greatest minds of all time.

Original Program Date: June 14, 2009

The World Science Festival gathers great minds in science and the arts to produce live and digital content that allows a broad general audience to engage with scientific discoveries. Our mission is to cultivate a general public informed by science, inspired by its wonder, convinced of its value, and prepared to engage with its implications for the future.
Subscribe to our YouTube Channel for all the latest from WSF.
Visit our Website: http://www.worldsciencefestival.com/
Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/worldscience...
Follow us on twitter: https://twitter.com/WorldSciFest

Caption author (Hungarian)
bedobos
Caption author (English)
Asmaa Jama
Category
Science & Technology
License
Standard YouTube License
======================
  #6  
Old March 27th 18, 02:25 PM posted to sci.space.history
Stuf4
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Posts: 554
Default Stephen Hawking and "Zero Gravity"

I wrote:
I wrote:
It shows the limits on how much he actually cared about educating the public.


And here is a video that shows the limits of how much Stephen Hawking cared about educating his own daughter:

'My Father, Stephen Hawking' (World Science Festival, June 14, 2009)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVVR4QyiqMc&t=5m16s

Quote:
"HERE HE IS FLOATING IN ZERO GRAVITY." -Lucy Hawking

She's speaking to this photo of her father Stephen Hawking on the Zero-G airplane flight:
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/RVVR4QyiqMc/maxresdefault.jpg


This leaves three possible explanations:
- Stephen Hawking himself had a deficient understanding of gravity,
- Stephen Hawking did not care enough to teach his own daughter very basic info about what gravity is and what gravity isn't, or
- Lucy Hawking DOES know that zero-g is not "zero gravity", but that she does not care about using accurate terminology.


This video of Hawking's daughter, taken together with that video title posted on his website, leads me to lean toward the middle conclusion.

Hawking died with a reputation for being a great educator. But these two videos stand as stark examples of his limits in caring about educating people on accurate physics.

snip

This situation is worse than I had originally thought. Up to now, I had given Stephen Hawking benefit of doubt. But here is a direct quote from his own book:

My Brief History (2013)
https://books.google.com/books?id=zU0TAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA125

Quote:
"I have been under the sea in a submarine and up in a hot air balloon and a zer-gravity flight, and I'm booked to go into space with Virgin Galactic."


This new info gives rise to these three possibilities:
- Hawking was lacking in the most basic understanding of what gravity isn't, or
- Hawking did not care about using scientifically accurate terminology, or
- Hawking had a ghost writer write his books, while he himself did not bother to proofread them in any thorough way.


It should also be noted in the earlier criticism of his daughter Lucy's statement that she had co-authored a series of books with him, and that these books covered the science of gravity. Yet she used this scientifically bogus term. And here is yet another example of a publication with Hawking's name on it that uses this bogus terminology.

Given this new set of three possibilities, if Hawking is to still be given the benefit of doubt, then the third explanation would be leaned toward.

....and this would mean that he was sloppy and lazy, instead of ignorant about this basic physics concept that even undergraduates should have a total grasp of.

Given any of those three explanations, this one quote from his book certainly impacts his legacy as an educator. Perhaps someone who was close to him might be able to provide more info that might shed some light on this grossly negligent (or grossly incompetent) finding.

There are now TWO INSTANCES of him being directly associated with these uses of the bogus term "zero gravity". And that's on top of no indication of him voicing objection to his daughter's use of the term. Given these finds with the very little effort that I've put into looking, it would not be surprising if there were plenty of other examples out there.

Given these several data points, I expect there will be many who will hold to a position that "It doesn't matter."

What that does is expose one's own ignorance in the importance of this issue.

An analogy that's been offered here many years back is that of standing in a river. You feel the current of water flowing around you. It is a visceral experience. Now imagine the person standing in the stream picking up their legs and floating down the river. This person makes the claim:

"I am now completely dry. Watch me float downstream. I am experiencing Zero Wetness."

Such a person is utterly clueless about the very basic conceptual understanding of what soaking in water is and what it isn't. You don't become dry just because you picked your feet up and the current is no longer opposing your standing position. You never left the "field" of water, and its wetness never approached anywhere close to zero.

Here we have at least three examples of Stephen Hawking and his offspring making statements that indicate their view that they were "completely dry" while fully soaking in the Earth's gravitational field.

ABSOLUTELY ASTOUNDING.

I am now going to have to rethink that proposal I had posted over at s.s.policy about renaming the new Space Telescope after him. Gravity, in 2018, is still a huge mystery. But there are many things that we are absolutely clear that it is not. This telescope holds the promise of unlocking many of gravity's mysteries. And it now seems questionable to name it after a person who has this embarrassingly loose terminology so intricately associated with his name.

~ CT
 




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