Stephen Hawking
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Stephen William Hawking, CH, CBE, FRS (born January 8 1942) is one of the world's leading theoretical physicists. Hawking is Lucasian professor of mathematics at the University of Cambridge (a post once held by Isaac Newton), and a fellow of Gonville and Caius College. The fact that he holds this post while being almost completely incapacitated with severe Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis has made him a worldwide celebrity.
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Biography
Hawking was born in Oxford, England to Frank and Isobel Hawking as their first child. He was educated at St Albans School, Hertfordshire and University College, Oxford, where he obtained a first class honours degree in Natural Science. He moved to Cambridge University to complete his PhD in cosmology at Trinity Hall.
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1974, appointed CBE in 1982 and became a Companion of Honour in 1989.
Hawking's principal fields of research are theoretical cosmology and quantum gravity. In 1971, he provided mathematical support for the big-bang theory of the origin of the universe; if the general theory of relativity was correct the universe must have a singularity, or starting point, in space-time. Hawking also suggested that following the Big Bang, primordial or mini black holes were formed. He showed that the surface area of a black hole can increase but never decrease, that there is a limit on the radiation emitted when black holes collide, and that a single black hole cannot break apart into two separate black holes. In 1974, he calculated that black holes thermally create and emit subatomic particles until they exhaust their energy and explode. Known as Hawking radiation, it linked gravity, quantum mechanics, and thermodynamics mathematically for the first time. In 1981, Hawking proposed that although the universe has no boundary, it is finite in space-time, and in 1983 he proved this mathematically.
Despite being severely disabled by Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) (a form of Motor Neurone Disease), he is highly active in physics, writing, and public life. He first began to show symptoms of the disorder while enrolled in Cambridge. He was diagnosed at the age of 21, shortly before his first marriage. At the time, doctors said he would not live more than about two or three years longer. He battled the odds and has survived much longer, although he has become increasingly disabled by the gradual progress of the disease. He has used an electronic voice synthesizer to communicate since he had a tracheostomy in 1985 following a severe bout of pneumonia. He gradually lost the use of his arms, legs, and voice and is now almost completely paralyzed. The computer system attached to his wheelchair is operated by Hawking manually through a single switch, and software called "Equalizer" and "EZKeys" which lets him talk, create speeches, research papers and books, browse the Internet, write e-mail, and do everything else that one can use a computer for. It also allows control over doors, lights, and lifts in his home and at the office via a radio transmitter system.
Being remembered chiefly for his science, there is every chance that he would never have made the discoveries he has were it not for the support of his family. Although he divorced Jane in 1990 (they had 3 children — named Tim, Lucy and Robert — and now have a grandchild), Hawking is still something of a family man. Relationships drive him, not physics. Despite his disease, he describes himself as "lucky" — not just because its slow progress allowed him time to make influential discoveries but because it afforded him time to have, in his own words, "a very attractive family"[1] (http://www.hawking.org.uk/disable/dindex.html). When Jane was asked why she decided to marry a man with a 3-year life expectancy, she responded: "These were the days of atomic gloom and doom, so we all had rather a short life expectancy". He married his second wife, Elaine Mason, in 1995.
His two books A Brief History of Time and The Universe in a Nutshell have remained highly popular all over the world and are now classic best-sellers. Anyone interested in the universe, cosmos and how it all began can read them: no previous knowledge in this field is required to enjoy these books. A collection of essays by him — Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays is also extremely popular.
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In popular culture, he has become a widely admired figure as a genius who has had a successful life despite his severe disability. He had a guest appearance in an episode on the holodeck of the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation, playing poker with Data, Albert Einstein, and Isaac Newton in the episode "Descent, Part I"; perhaps a tribute to his status is that he remains the only person to have appeared as (a simulation of) himself in an episode of Star Trek. While passing through the Main Engineering set, Hawking paused near the warp engine, smiled, and said, "I'm working on that." The animated television series The Simpsons and Futurama have occasionally featured him in episodes, and a actor playing Hawking has appeared in the television series Dilbert. On Late Night with Conan O'Brien he participated in a skit with Jim Carrey. He also lent his voice to the Pink Floyd song "Keep Talking" from The Division Bell. A Hawking-like character named "Professor Hawk" who used a robot-like voice while flying around in a hawk suit has appeared on a cartoon episode of Dexter's Laboratory. A parody website has a Hawking-like voice synthesizer rapping about physics [2] (http://www.mchawking.com/)
Hawking is famous for his oft-made statement, "When I hear of Schrödinger's cat, I reach for my gun." This was a deliberately ironic paraphrase of Hermann Göring's anti-intellectual quote, "When I hear the word 'culture', I reach for my Browning", which itself was from a play by German playwright and Nazi Poet Laureate, Hanns Johst.
As well as his serious academic side, and humor, Hawking is an active supporter of different causes, having appeared on a party political broadcast for the Labour Party, and in actively supporting the children's charity (http://www.soschildrensvillages.org.uk/sos-children-charity/our-friends.htm), SOS Children's Villages. Reportedly he also agreed to take part in a protest against the war in Iraq. [3] (http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=577860)
Losing an old bet
Hawking was in the news in July 2004 for presenting a new theory about black holes which goes against his own long-held belief about their behaviour, thus losing a bet he and Kip Thorne made with John Preskill, a particle physicist. Classically, it can be shown that information crossing the event horizon of a black hole is lost to our universe. This is known as the no hair theorem. The problem with the no hair theorem is that it implies the black hole will emit the same radiation regardless of what goes into the black hole. So if a pure quantum state is thrown into a black hole, a mixed state will be returned. This runs counter to the rules of quantum mechanics and is known as the black hole information paradox.
Hawking had earlier speculated that the singularity at the center of a black hole could form a bridge to a "baby universe" into which the lost information could pass; such theories have been very popular in science fiction. But according to Hawking's new idea, presented at the 17th International Conference on General Relativity and Gravitation, on 21 July, 2004 in Dublin, Ireland, black holes eventually transmit, in a garbled form, information about all matter they swallow.
- The Euclidean path integral over all topologically trivial metrics can be done by time slicing and so is unitary when analytically continued to the Lorentzian. On the other hand, the path integral over all topologically non-trivial metrics is asymptotically independent of the initial state. Thus the total path integral is unitary and information is not lost in the formation and evaporation of black holes. The way the information gets out seems to be that a true event horizon never forms, just an apparent horizon.
--GR Conference website (http://www.dcu.ie/~nolanb/gr17.htm) summary of Hawking's talk.
Having concluded that information is conserved, Hawking conceded his bet in Preskill's favor, awarding him Total Baseball, The Ultimate Baseball Encyclopedia, an encyclopædia from which information is easily retrieved. However, Thorne remains unconvinced of Hawking's proof and declined to contribute to the award.
Awards
- 1975 Eddington Medal
- 1985 Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society
- 1988 Wolf Prize in Physics
- 1999 [4] (http://www.aps.org/praw/lilienfe/99winner.cfm) Julius Edgar Lilienfeld Prize of the American Physical Society
Publications
Technical
- The Large Scale Structure of Spacetime with George Ellis
- ...and many more
Popular
- A Brief History of Time, (Bantam Press 1988)
- Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays, (Bantam Books 1993)
- The Universe in a Nutshell, (Bantam Press 2001)
- ...and many more
N.B. On Hawking's website (http://www.hawking.org.uk/info/iindex.html), he denounces the unauthorized publication of The Theory of Everything and asks consumers to boycott this book.
Popular Culture
- MC Hawking — the imaginary alter-ego for the "theoretical physicist turned gangster-rapper"
- The Simpsons — made a few guest appearances on the long running prime-time cartoon. In "They Saved Lisa's Brain", he saves Lisa from the power-hungry Springfield chapter of Mensa in a special wheelchair, complete with an Inspector Gadget-style retractable helicopter attachment and a spring-loaded boxing glove. In the Season 16 episode "Don't Fear the Roofer", he is a friend of Lenny's and shows up to explain that Bart couldn't see Ray (guest voice Ray Romano) during one scene because there was a black hole between the two of them.
- Futurama — made a guest appearance as part of a team guarding the space-time continuum, which included Al Gore, Nichelle Nichols, and Gary Gygax.
- The Onion — satirical newspaper ran an article claiming that Hawking's head had been mounted on a super-robotic cyborg body, complete with laser guided missiles and a jetpack. Hawking, with his typical good humor, sent them a letter cursing them for exposing his evil plans for world domination.
- Dilbert — Was featured in an episode about Dilbert's project, the Gruntmaster 6000, creating a black hole to wipe out all life on Earth.
- Pinky and the Brain — In an episode where a black hole is used as a weapon, Pinky throws it out of a hotel room window in defiance of the laws of physics. Brain notes that he must consult with Stephen Hawking.
- Star Trek: The Next Generation — Data is seen playing poker with holographic depictions of Stephen Hawking, Sir Isaac Newton, and Albert Einstein. Hawking potrayed his own hologram for this episode. (Season 6, Episode 26 Descent (http://www.tv.com/descent-1/episode/19138/summary.html))
- Family Guy — Hawking's persona has been featured on the episode "Peter, Peter, Caviar Eater" It is a very brief cameo during the song "This House is Freaking Sweet" Hawking is presented as the man who will help Chris do his homework.
- Pink Floyd — Hawking gave his voice to parts of the Pink Floyd song Keep Talking.
- Fairly Odd Parents — In the episode Remy Rides Again, Hawking appeared throughout the episode in a mechanical flying wheelchair with a rocket on the back of it that at the end of the episode, disappeared in a similar way as the Delorean going back in time in Back To The Future. Hawking was played by Dee Bradley Baker in this episode. Hawking was hired by Remy to proove that 2 + 2 = 5, and was also Crocker's roommate in college.
- Richard Cheese and Lounge Against the Machine — Richard and Hawking sing "The Girl is Mine" as a charming duet on Aperitif for Destruction. (Celebrity voices impersonated)
See also
External links
- Stephen Hawking's site (http://www.hawking.org.uk/)
- An overview of Hawking's communication system (http://www.hawking.org.uk/disable/computer.html)
- Emma Ross, Stephen Hawking's Birthday Celebrated, 7 January 2002, LA Times (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/wire/sns-ap-britain-stephen-hawking0107jan07.story?coll=sns%2Dap%2Dworld%2Dheadlines)
- Hawking celebrates own brief history, 7 January 2002, BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1746000/1746912.stm)
- Black holes turned "inside out", 22 July 2004, BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3913145.stm)
- Colonies in space may be only hope, says Hawking (http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/10/16/nhawk16.xml) 16 October 2001, The Daily Telegraphda:Stephen Hawking
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