"Professor Stephen Hawking's spectacular success was against all odds," Rees added
Martin Rees is a British cosmologist, a professor at the University of Cambridge where Prof. Stephen Hawking also worked, the chairman of the Royal Society, the most important scientific body in Britain and one of the most important in the world, and also serves as the British Royal Astronomer since 1995.
"Shortly after I enrolled for a master's degree at Cambridge University in 1964, I ran into another student who had started the degree two years before, who was unsteady on his feet and spoke with great difficulty. This was Stephen Hawking. He had been diagnosed shortly before with a degenerative disease, and he thought he was May not survive long enough to even finish his Ph.D. But he lived to be 76 and died on March 14, 2018.” Afro He was buried in Westminster Abbey alongside Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin on Saturday, March 31.
"It was really amazing." Rees writes in an article on The Conversation website. "Astronomers are used to big numbers. But this is a very small number - the chance I would give him of living a lifetime. Even just surviving was a medical miracle, but of course he didn't just survive. He became one of the most famous scientists in the world - hailed as the world's leading researcher in mathematical physics , for his best-selling books and his amazing victory over his physical disability."
"This may sound surprising, but Hawking was quite lazy as an undergraduate at Oxford University. However, his genius allowed him to obtain a first-class honors degree in physics and he chose to pursue a research career at Cambridge University. Within a few years of the onset of his illness, he was confined to a wheelchair, And his speech was an indistinct gurgle that only those who knew him could interpret. In other ways, luck favored him. He married a friend The family, Jane Wilde, who provided him and their three children with a supportive home life."
Early work
"The sixties were an exciting time in astronomy and cosmology. It was the decade when evidence for black holes and the Big Bang began to appear. At Cambridge, Hawking focused on the new mathematical concepts developed by the mathematical physicist Roger Penrose, who was then researching at University College London, where it was a period The flowering of the study of Einstein's theory of general relativity."
"Using Penrose's method, Hawking understood that the universe must emerge from a 'singular point' - a point where all the laws of physics break down. He also understood that the event horizon of a black hole - a point from which light cannot escape - could never shrink. In the following decades, the support The observation of these ideas was strengthened - in a most spectacular way with the announcement in 2016 of the discovery of gravitational waves created from the collision of two black holes."
"Hawking was elected to the Royal Society, the main British scientific academy, at an extremely young age - 32. He was then so weak that most of us suspected that he would no longer be able to reach great heights in science, but for Hawking this was still only the beginning."
"He worked in the same building with me. I often pushed his wheelchair into his office, and he would ask me to open a sophisticated book on quantum theory - the science of atoms, not a subject that interested him until now. He would sit for long hours without moving - he was unable Even turning the pages without help I remember wondering what was going through his mind, and if his powers had failed. But within a year, he came up with his best idea ever folded into the equation he said he wanted you to enact His tombstone."
Scientific planet
"Scientific breakthroughs involve discovering a connection between phenomena that until then seemed unrelated. Hawking's "eureka moment" revealed a deep and unexpected connection between gravity and quantum theory. He predicted black Blacks will not be completely black, but will radiate a characteristic energy."
"This radiation is significant only for black holes that are much less massive than stars - and none of them have been found so far. However, "Hawking radiation" had very profound consequences for mathematical physics - laying the mathematical basis for string theory, thereby confirming the His idea."
Indeed, string theorist Andrew Strominger of Harvard University (who recently collaborated with Hawking) said that this paper caused "more sleepless nights among theoretical physicists than any scientific paper in history." The key issue is whether information is seemingly lost when objects fall into a hole Black it can in principle return in the form of radiation, when the black hole evaporates. If not, then it violates a deep principle of physics Hawking initially thought that such information was lost, but later changed his mind.
"Hawking continued to search for new connections between the very large (the universe) and the very small (atoms and quantum theory) as well as to gain deeper insights into the beginnings of our universe, and to answer questions such as was our Big Bang the only one? He had an extraordinary ability to figure things out in his head . But he also worked with students and colleagues who wrote formulas on a board, he would consult a board, and say if he agreed with what was written and if he had any suggestions."
"He was particularly influential for his contributions to 'cosmic inflation'—a theory that many believe describes the earliest stages of our expanding universe. A central issue is understanding the primordial seeds that eventually evolved into galaxies. Hawking suggested (as he did independently Russian theorist Vyacheslav Mokanov) these were "quantum fluctuations" (temporary changes in the amount of energy at a point in space) - somewhat analogous to those involved in 'Hawking radiation' from black holes. He also took further steps towards linking the two great theories of 20th century physics: quantum theory and Einstein's theory of gravity dealing with space-time."
A decline in his health and the worship around him
"In 1985, Hawking contracted pneumonia. He had to undergo tracheostomy surgery, which eliminated even the limited powers of speech he had. It had been more than ten years since he could write, or even use a keyboard. Without speech, the only way he could communicate was by directing his eye to one of the letters of the alphabet on a large board in front of him."
"But he was saved by technology. He still used one hand, and a computer controlled by a single lever allowed him to form sentences. These were translated into speech by an American-accented android synthesizer that later became his trademark."
"His lectures were, of course, prepared in advance, but every conversation became a struggle. Each word involved several presses of the lever, so that even writing a sentence required several minutes."
"He learned to be sparing of words. His comments were aphoristic or oracular, but often they were sharp. In his later years he had become too weak to control this machine effectively, even through facial muscles or eye movements, and to his great frustration, the way he communicated with The world has become even slower."
"At the time of his tracheostomy surgery, he had a rough draft of a book, which he hoped would describe his ideas to a wide readership and enable him to earn money for his two older children, who were then of college age. Upon recovering from pneumonia, He went back to work and helped the editor to write the book. When the American edition of "Abridged History of Time" appeared, the printers made some mistakes (for example, an image was turned over). The publishers tried to return the books to the publisher that were printed. To their astonishment, all the copies have already been sold. This was the first evidence that the book was destined for success and would be read by millions of people around the world."
"He quickly became a cult figure, appearing in popular television programs, from symposia to the series The Big Bang Theory. This was probably because the concept of an imprisoned mind wandering in the universe clearly captured the imagination of people. If he had received equal distinctions in terms of scientific importance, for example, in genetics and not in cosmology , he probably wouldn't have achieved the same resonance in the world public."
"As shown in the movie The Theory of Everything, which tells the human story behind his struggle, Hawking was far from the archetype of a 'geek' scientist. His personality remained unquestioned despite his frustrations and shortcomings. He had common sense, and was willing to express strong political opinions."
"However, the downside of his iconic status was that his comments attracted excessive attention even on subjects in which he had no particular expertise - for example, philosophy, or the dangers lurking in aliens or intelligent machines. He was sometimes involved in media events, where his speeches were written by interest promoters which might have been ambivalent in his eyes."
"Ultimately, Hawking's life was shaped by the tragedy that struck him when he was only 22 years old. He himself said that everything that happened since then was a bonus. And what a triumph his life was. His name will live in the history of science, and he will live in the hearts of the millions of people whose cosmic horizons have expanded on Through his best-selling books, he has also inspired millions through a unique example of achievement against all odds - an expression of will. and incredible determination."
Photo: Hawking at Cambridge University. Lwp Kommunikáció / Flickr, CC BY-SA
to the article on The Conversation website
- Prof. Stephen Hawking died in his sleep * He studied black holes and was a social activist
- Artificial intelligence - the most terrible event in human history?
- Translation of the transcript of Hawking's lecture on the beginning of the universe at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, 2006
- Hawking, intelligent aliens may exist. You should be careful of them
