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
Time and space are finite in extent, but they don't have any boundary or edge. They would be like the surface of the earth, but with two more dimensions.
Thirty years ago I was diagnosed with motor neurone disease, and given two and a half years to live. I have always wondered how they could be so precise about the half.
When I was first diagnosed with ALS, I was given two years to live. Now 45 years later, I am doing pretty well.
A theory is a good theory if it satisfies two requirements: it must accurately describe a large class of observations on the basis of a model that contains only a few arbitrary elements, and it must make definite predictions about the results of future observations.
If we can avoid disaster for the next two centuries, our species should be safe as we spread into space. If we are the only intellegent beings in the galaxy we should make sure we survive and continue. . . . Our only chance of long-term survival is not to remain inward looking on planet Earth but to spread out into space. We have made remarkable progress in the last hundred years. But if we want to continue beyond the next hundred years, our future is in space.
Maybe I don't have the most common kind of motor neuron disease, which usually kills in two or three years.
So great a contribution to physics was Two New Sciences that scholars have long maintained that the book anticipated Isaac Newton's laws of motion.
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.
The doctor who diagnosed me with ALS, or motor neuron disease, told me that it would kill me in two or three years.
When two's company, three's the result!
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.