WHY was the big bang so very big? It has been a struggle to explain why the infant universe expanded so rapidly. But now Stephen Hawking at the University of Cambridge, and colleagues, think they are close to perfecting an answer - by treating the early cosmos as a quantum object with a multitude of alternative universes that gradually blend into ...

In keeping with the theme of TED2008, professor Stephen Hawking asks some Big Questions about our universe -- How did the universe begin? How did life begin? Are we alone? -- and discusses how we might go about answering them.

The universe began with a massive expansion, billions and billions of years ago, and it continues to expand with every passing second. The idea that the universe, and man's very existence, began with a ''Big Bang'' is no longer a topic of debate among most scientists--it is essentially taken as fact. How has man come to this ...

Cross-posted from Sentient Developments. This article is partly adapted from my TransVision 2007 presentation, “Whither ET? What the failing search for extraterrestrial intelligence tells us about humanity's future.” The Fermi Paradox is alive and well. As our sciences mature, and as the search for ...

Cross-posted from Sentient Developments.   I'm surprised how often the Drake Equation is still mentioned when people discuss such things as the search for extra terrestrial intelligence (SETI), astrobiology and problems like the Fermi Paradox. Fairly recent insights in such fields as cosmology, astrobiology and various future studies ...

An interesting theory has emerged which predicts that trillions of years into the future, the information that currently allows us to understand how the universe expands will have disappeared over the visible horizon. All that will remain will be ''an island universe'' made from the Milky Way and its nearby galactic Local Group neighbors. ...

Written across the sky is a secret, a hidden blueprint detailing the original design of the universe itself. The spread of matter throughout space follows a pattern laid out at the beginning of time and scaled up to incredible proportions by near...

A new theory by Robert Lanza, vice president of research and scientific development at Advanced Cell Technology, asserts that biology, not physics, will be the key to unlocking the deepest mysteries of the universe, such as quantum mechanics. ''For...

James Gardner, author of the recently published book, The Intelligent Universe, will appear on the national ...