Prof. Stephen Hawking died in his sleep * He studied black holes and was a social activist

The fate of the universe, the fate of humanity versus the robots, the defense of reason against other religions and ideological groups, and more. Not just a part of Prof. Hawking's many faces, the most important of which was his struggle with the ALS disease

Last night, Prof. Stephen Hawking, theoretical physicist and cosmologist, researcher at the Center for Theoretical Cosmology at the University of Cambridge, passed away in his sleep.

His scientific works done in collaboration with Prof. Richard Penrose on the singularity theorem within the framework of general relativity and theoretically predicted that black holes also emit radiation, which is named after him - Hawking radiation. He was also one of the developers of the theory that explains cosmology as a union of general relativity and quantum mechanics, but there is still a debate between the scientists who claim that this combination contains many paradoxes.

Hawking was an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Sciences and Arts (FRSA), a Life Member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States. In 2002, Hawking was ranked number 25 in a BBC poll of the 100 Greatest Britons. He was the head of the chair at the University of Cambridge in 1979-2009. His book A Brief History of Time lasted 237 weeks on the Sunday Times' list of Rabbis of Tomorrow.

Hawking had a rare, early and slow form of multiple sclerosis known as ALS. He has gradually become silent over the last few decades but still managed to communicate with his surroundings through a cheek muscle connected to a computer equipped with a speech generator.
Hawking died in the early morning hours of March 14, 2018.
As a theorist, Hawking specialized in the study of black holes, back when they were theoretical objects. One of the questions he dealt with was what happens to black holes over long periods of time. The radiation he saw is actually supposed to cause the various holes to evaporate (although this is a huge time stealer). The question on which Hawking changed his position is whether only the matter that was trapped in the black hole returns to the normal universe or whether the information that was in it before it collapsed into the black hole will also be decipherable.
Besides the fate of the universe in trillions of years, he was also occupied with many social questions. In recent years, he has mainly dealt with the expected threats to the human race, from global warming to the fear that a strong artificial intelligence will try to get rid of the human race.
At an event held in October 2017 on the occasion of the establishment of an artificial intelligence center at the University of Cambridge. In his opening remarks at the LCFI, Hawking said that AI would be "the best thing, or the worst thing, that will ever happen to humanity".

"I believe that there is a profound difference between what can be achieved by a biological brain and what the capabilities of a computer can be and hence computers could, in theory, imitate human intelligence, and even surpass it."
In an interview Hawking gave in 2014 to the BBC, he said that "the development of full artificial intelligence could mark the end of the human race." Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Tesla and SpaceX co-founder Elon Musk provided similar comments around the same time about where technology is headed.

Prof. Stephen Hawking is the most famous person suffering from the rare and incurable muscular dystrophy ALS. ALS is the most serious of the group of degenerative diseases that damage the motor neurons. The disease is rare and incurable. This disease damages the peripheral motor neurons through which the brain supervises the activation of most of the voluntary muscles in the body. The nerve cells are destroyed and as a result they cannot activate the muscles. As a result, the muscles weaken until they are completely paralyzed. During the course of the disease, the muscles responsible for activating the limbs, swallowing, steering and breathing are gradually damaged, in a non-fixed order. However, the cognitive part of the brain is not affected, and these patients are often forced to find creative ways to communicate with their environment.

A selection of articles dealing with Stephen Hawking on the science website:

• Prof. Hawking's lecture on the origin of life held at the Hebrew University during his visit to Israel at the end of 2006. Translation by Avi Blizovsky
• Stephen Hawking - high probability of the existence of primitive aliens
• Stephen Hawking - There is no heaven. These are fabric stories
• Stephen Hawking and Mark Zuckerberg are aiming for the stars
• Stephen Hawking tempered his statements about artificial intelligence