The big question that even Stephen Hawking couldn't answer

Jiang Yunsheng

2006-08-11

About a month ago, Professor Stephen Hawking turned to Yahoo Answers, a new feature in which anyone can pose a question for fellow Internet users to try to answer.

He posed an open question: "In a world that is in chaos politically, socially and environmentally, how can the human race sustain another 100 years?"

Hawking's conundrum drew 25,396 responses in total. But, in fact, what we all really wanted was to hear this British astrophysicist, one of the most intelligent man on the planet, answer his own question.

A week ago, Hawking's response finally arrived: "I don't know the answer. That is why I asked the question."

Such an answer is a disappointment. But not unexpected.

There are too many factors that will affect the human race's survival or destruction: The world population crisis; environmental pollution and ecological deterioration; trade frictions; disparities between the poor and rich; religious contradictions and national estrangement ...

Humans are caught in their own trap. All men and women (no exceptions Western or Eastern) have humanity's common failings: Jealousy, greed, selfishness, arrogance and prejudice.

However, humans can save themselves. Half-angel, half-devil, that is what it means to be human. To follow in the steps of the sages and cultivate our original nature, everyone can give up evil and return to virtue.

Hawking had reportedly said that in the long term, humans would only survive if they could leave the rock they called home and spread out into space, to transform and occupy planets around our own sun and then around other suns. Failing that, perhaps our best bet was to use genetic engineering to tinker with the human species and make us less prone to fighting wars.

Good idea, but "Acqua lontana non spegne fuoco vicino." (Distant water cannot quench a fire nearby.)

Maybe we'd get on better if we earnestly practiced the old adage: "Live and let live."