Brief Answers to the Big Questions

by Stephen Hawking

think computer viruses should count as life. Maybe it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. Talk about creating life in our own image.

Therefore, a human’s DNA is equivalent to about fifty Harry Potter books, and a major national library can contain about five million books – or about ten trillion bits.

These could be designed to last long enough for interstellar travel. When they arrived at a new star, they could land on a suitable planet and mine material to produce more machines, which could be sent on to yet more stars.

By the year 2600 the world’s population would be standing shoulder to shoulder and the electricity consumption would make the Earth glow red hot.