While Stephen Hawking is famous for his ground-breaking achievements in the world of physics and being the world’s longest survivor of ALS, he is also known for his dry sense of humour. Those highbrow enough to have seen “The Theory of Everything” will remember this from Eddie Redmayne’s Oscar-winning performance. Now, he’s spoken out against President-elect Donald Trump, who is due to be inaugurated on 20 January, in an interview about what life might be like on other worlds.
Compared us to intelligent life
Following his bestselling book “A Brief History of Time” and other fascinating scientific achievements, Hawking is now spending funding of $100 million on an interstellar travel project called Starshot (an innovative project that will send a spacecraft to other potentially habitable planets in the hopes that we may obtain images of them and go from there).
In an interview regarding Starshot, Hawking was asked what intelligent life on other planets might be like, which the brilliant physicist used as a springboard to comment on the majority vote going to Trump: “Judging from the election campaign, definitely not like us.”
Not the first time Hawking has taken on Trump
Hawking, who celebrated his 75th birthday yesterday, previously referred to Trump during his campaign as “a demagogue who seems to appeal to the lowest common denominator.” Granted, the meaning of this insult was probably lost on Trump and his supporters since it contains a lot of big words. However, they seemed eager to understand it, since right after he said it, Google reported a huge spike in searches for “demagogue” and “denominator.”
Trump’s campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, responded to Hawking’s comments: “For a so-called genius, this was an epic fail.
If Professor Hawking wants to do some damage, maybe he should try talking in English next time.” These people are running one of the biggest superpowers in the world and they’re using childish terms like “epic fail” to refer to an honest opinion shared by one of the greatest minds of all time.
Research shows racism and sexism won Trump the election
Research into the election and its voters by political scientists at the University of Massachusetts has recently determined that Trump’s success amongst white voters who lack a college education is more likely to be down to his “explicit racist and sexist appeals,” rather than, as Trump likes to believe it, because he speaks to the downtrodden and they are ‘real people’ who want a ‘real person’ they can support in the Oval Office. Hawking could be right.
