There are many people who claim to be prophets that can predict the end of the world and, if we're being real, most of them are simply spouting out BS. However, if there's one person's prediction that you're going to believe when it comes to the end of our time on this planet, it's going to be Stephen Hawking's.
The legendary professor, who sadly passed away last week, submitted a paper just two weeks before his death in which he outlined how we can detect evidence of other universes and predicted the end of our existence.
The paper, which was finished on his deathbed, discusses the idea that we could potentially measure the scope of other universes by using a detector on a spaceship.
It's believed that if this evidence had been found during Hawking's lifetime, it would've scooped him the Nobel Peace Prize - something which evaded him throughout his entire career. Thomas Hertog, who co-authored the paper named A Smooth Exit from Eternal Inflation, told the Sunday Times: "He has often been nominated for the Nobel and should have won it. Now he never can."
Hawking is a believer in the Big Bang, with him writing a 1983 paper in which he explains how the universe came into existence through the explosion, which would've created an infinite number of other universes.
However, while this theory of inflation was impossible to test, Hertog claimed that he and Hawking wanted to take the idea of a "multiverse" and turn it into a "testable scientific framework."
The potentially ground-breaking research also suggests that Earth will fade into darkness when the stars eventually run out of energy.
The idea is a controversial one, with cosmologists such as Pressor Neil Turok, the director of Canada's Perimeter Institute, saying that he was confused as to why Hawking would even find the idea interesting.
However, on the other hand, some scientists believe that Hawking's latest work could be the breakthrough that cosmologists have required when it comes to studying the end of the world. Carlos Frenk, a professor of cosmology, argued that it has previously been impossible to measure other universes but also says that Hawking's work could be the first theory to be realistically tested.
He said: "The intriguing idea in Hawking's paper is that [the multiverse] left its imprint on the background radiation permeating our universe and we could measure it with a detector on a spaceship."
Frenk argues that finding evidence of other universes would completely alter our perception of our place in the cosmos and could lead to further enlightening studies.
So, while the end of the world predictions can often seem cliche and tedious, it turns out that Hawking's may actually have some weight to it. Of course, as with all these theories, the end of time is still some way off, so there's no need to run of the grocery store and stock up on tinned food just yet.
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