So the “coincidence” of exactly 300 years is just a fabrication of the system of measurement: the decimal system. This to me seems like an example of deception: pretending that there is any significance to his birth date and a promotion of numerology.
The year “300” is a result of using the decimal system. Any other number system would not give a round number (I think). So the number 300 is meaningless isn’t it?
For that matter, days and months are arbitrary to. We could have a calendar with only two months, and then his B-day probably wouldn’t be the same as Galileo’s.
It seems to be numerology: “The study of the occult meanings of numbers”
Kind of a spooky thing for “one of the world’s smartest people” to promote.
Mem, it is really much more likely that whoever put that website together (probably under the supervision of Hawking’s agent or PR person) had that put up there as a marketing gimmick. Really, I can’t imagine Hawking to personally endorse such odd-ball pseudoscience.
If we were to take it seriously as a deliberate indication of numerology, perhaps parents of children born December 5th, 2006 might argue that they are reincarnations of Mozart… who died 215 years earlier… (perhaps that Mozart reincarnation exists already 15 years ago) or that in the future, on December 5th, 2041… 300 years after Mozart, we have a boy born who later shares the same characteristics as Mozart. To add to probability… let’s say he’s born in Salzburg! Would that do it for you?
Yes, in a way I think you’re right but I don’t think the number 300 is meant to be too significant. It could have been 500 or 253. The real significance is that the the earth was in the exact position – relative to the sun – when both episodes took place. The nice round number it comes to is irrelevant; it’s simply a man-made counting system that holds no meaning in the universe except to its creator. It’s like saying a particular star is exactly one million miles away. So what? A mile is a man-made unit (which varies in some countries) and this star happens to be one million arbitrary units away.
That being said, Hawkins would have written that blurb himself. He has a penchant for linking himself to famous people. I’ve heard him boast that he occupies the same position Sir Isaac Newton once held several times so the fact that he would try to link himself to Galileo is no surprise.
He’s clever but I doubt he’s the genius he thinks he is.
Regardless of his genius, I guess my point was to indicate that even geniuses can be petty, even dumb in other areas AND that these things MIGHT be an indicator of why we believe superstitious things:
smart people tell us to believe dumb things (and they might even believe them too).
The entire system of measurement that we use for time (numbering years) is in decimal. It would not make sense to deviate from this when referencing one particular date.
In any case, I think that the probability that Stephan Hawking (a theoretical physicist) is not aware of the relativity of measurement is infintesimal.
