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
In the past, there was active discrimination against women in science. That has now gone, and although there are residual effects, these are not enough to account for the small numbers of women, particularly in mathematics and physics.
The laws of science, as we know them at present, contain many fundamental numbers, like the size of the electric charge of the electron and the ratio of the masses of the proton and the electron .... The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers seem to have been finely adjusted to make possible the development of life.
The idea that we are alone in the universe seems to me completely implausible and arrogant, considering the number of planets and stars that we know exist, it's extremely unlikely that we are the only form of evolved life.
As a child, I wanted to know how things worked and to control them. With a friend, I built a number of complicated models that I could control. It was a natural next step to want to know how the universe works.
To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational,
Over a very small number of rolls of the dice, the uncertainty principle is very important.
Perhaps one day I will go into space.
It now appears that the way the universe began can indeed be determined, using imaginary time.
If you understand the universe, you control it, in a way.
I think the discovery of supersymmetric partners for the known particles would revolutionize our understanding of the universe.
I have wanted to fly into space for many years, but never imagined it would really be feasible.
Wagner manages to convey emotion with music better than anyone, before or since.
Time can behave like another direction in space under extreme conditions.
My wife and I love each other very much.