Stephen Hawking
Stephen Hawking
Stephen William Hawking, CH, CBE, FRS, FRSAis an English theoretical physicist, cosmologist, author and Director of Research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology within the University of Cambridge. His scientific works include a collaboration with Roger Penrose on gravitational singularity theorems in the framework of general relativity, and the theoretical prediction that black holes emit radiation, often called Hawking radiation. Hawking was the first to set forth a theory of cosmology explained by a union of the general theory of...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth8 January 1942
CityOxford, England
[Question: Do you feel that scientists correct themselves as often as they should?] More often than politicians, but not as often as they should.
[Question: What do you think was the most important physics idea to emerge this year?] We won't know for a few years.
The concern here is that financial services become a kind of tech-led Wild West.
When the going gets tough, the tough take a coffee break.
But a machine that was powerful enough to accelerate particles to the grand unification energy would have to be as big as the Solar System - and would be unlikely to be funded in the present economic climate.
If at first you don't succeed, try management.
Bodies like the earth are not made to move on curved orbits by a force called gravity; instead, they follow the nearest thing to a straight path in a curved space, which is called a geodesic. A geodesic is the shortest (or longest) path between two nearby points.
What was God doing before the divine creation?
There is a real danger that computers will develop intelligence and take over.
Any physical theory is always provisional, in the sense that it is only a hypothesis: you can never prove it.
Everything that civilisation has to offer is a product of human intelligence; we cannot predict what we might achieve when this intelligence is magnified by the tools that AI may provide, but the eradication of war, disease, and poverty would be high on anyone's list. Success in creating AI would be the biggest event in human history. Unfortunately, it might also be the last.
[Asked what he thinks about most during the day] Women. They are a complete mystery.
I have so much that I want to do. I hate wasting time.
The doctor who diagnosed me with ALS, or motor neuron disease, told me that it would kill me in two or three years.