Today we know that Hawking has a brilliant mind and works on theories that are very difficult for the average person to understand. So it may surprise you to learn that Hawking was a slacker in school.
When he was 9 years old, his grades were among the worst in his class. With a little push, Hawking raised his scores to average, but not higher.
However, from early childhood he was interested in how everything around him worked. I took apart the clock and radio. However, according to Hawking himself, it was not possible to put them back together.
Despite the poor grades, peers and teachers suspected that a genius was growing up among them, as evidenced by Hawking's nickname, which he was given at school - Einstein. Due to low grades at school, another problem arose: his father wanted to send Hawking to Oxford, but there was no money without a scholarship. Luckily, when it came to the scholarship exams, Stephen got a perfect score in physics.
Hawking hated biology
Stephen Hawking had a liking for mathematics from an early age and wanted to know it perfectly. But his father Frank had a different point of view. He wanted to see Stephen as a doctor.
For all his interest in science, Stephen was not at all interested in biology. He said it was “too imprecise, too descriptive.” And he would rather devote his mind to clearer and more verified ideas.
However, Oxford did not have a mathematics department. A compromise was found as follows: Hawking entered Oxford to study physics.
But even as a physicist, he focused on big questions. When faced with a choice between elementary particles and studying their behavior and cosmology, Hawking chose to study the universe. Cosmology was barely recognized as a full-fledged science, but this did not stop the young genius from choosing this path. Particle physics, Hawking said, “was like botany. There are particles, but no theory."
Was on the Oxford rowing team
Biographer Christine Larsen wrote that Hawking was isolated and unhappy during his first year at Oxford. But everything changed when he joined the rowing team.
Long before Hawking was struck by a disease that almost completely paralyzed him, the scientist could hardly be called an athlete. But the rowing team needed small people to play the role of helmsmen, who do not row, but control the steering and the pace.
And since rowing was important and popular for the Oxford people, Hawking's role made him popular. One member of the rowing team called him "the adventurous type."
However, being involved in rowing training six days a week, Hawking began to "mow" his studies. “Cutting serious corners” and using “creative analysis for lab work.”
At age 21, doctors thought Hawking would only live a couple of years.
As a graduate student, Stephen Hawking began experiencing symptoms of fatigue and clumsiness. The family became concerned, and one Christmas holiday they insisted he see a doctor.
Before meeting the doctor, Hawking celebrated the New Year and met his future wife, Jane Wilde. She recalls that what attracted her to Hawking was his “sense of humor and independent personality.”
A week later he turned 21, and a little later he was admitted to the hospital for a two-week examination. There he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, better known as Lou Gehrig's disease. This is a neurological disease, as a result of which the patient gradually loses control over the muscles. Doctors said that he only had a few years to live.
Hawking remembers being shocked and wondering why this happened to him. But when I met a boy in the hospital dying of leukemia, I realized that there are worse things.
Hawking became optimistic and began dating Jane. They soon moved in together, and according to Hawking, he had “something to live for.”
Participated in the creation of the theory of an infinite Universe
One of Hawking's major achievements (which he shared with Jim Hartle) was the development of the theory that the universe has no boundaries in 1983.
In 1983, in an attempt to understand the nature and shape of the Universe, Hawking and Hartley, using concepts from quantum mechanics and Einstein's general theory of relativity, showed that the Universe has content but no boundaries.
To visualize this, people need to imagine the Universe as the surface of the Earth. Being on a sphere, we can go in any direction and will never reach a corner, edge or border where we can confidently say: “That's it. End". However, the fundamental difference is that the Earth's surface is two-dimensional (more precisely, its surface), while the Universe has four dimensions.
Hawking explains that spacetime is like the latitude lines of the globe. Starting from the North Pole (the beginning of the Universe) and going south, the circle grows to the equator, and then decreases. This means that the Universe is finite in space-time and will one day collapse - but not before 20 billion years. Does this mean that time itself will go in the opposite direction? Hawking raised this question, but decided not to, because there was no reason to believe that the principle of entropy, that is, the tendency of ordered energy to become chaotic, would change in the opposite direction.
Lost a bet on black holes
In 2004, the brilliant Hawking admitted that he was wrong and lost a bet that he made in 1997 with a scientist he knew. To understand the essence of the bet, let's go back to the fact.
The stars are huge. Their large mass generates powerful gravity (read more). As the nuclear fuel inside the star burns, energy is released outward, counteracting gravity. But when a star “burns up,” gravity becomes so powerful that the star collapses, folding in on itself, giving birth to a black hole.
Gravity is so powerful that even light cannot escape the black hole. However, in 1975, Hawking stated that black holes are not black. On the contrary, they radiate energy. In this case, the data disappears into a black hole, which eventually evaporates. The problem is that this idea, that information disappears in a black hole, contradicts quantum mechanics and creates what Hawking called the “information paradox.”
American theoretical physicist John Preskill disagreed with the conclusion that information is lost in a black hole. In 1997, he made a bet with Hawking, arguing that information simply could not leave her, which did not contradict the laws of quantum mechanics.
Hawking, like a good athlete, admitted that he was wrong - in 2004. At a scientific conference, a scientist said that because black holes have more than one “topology,” and when one accommodates the information released from all the topologies, it is not lost.
Received many awards and honors
During his long career in physics, Hawking accumulated an impressive number of awards and honors. It’s unlikely that they will not be replenished with new ones, but let’s go through what already exists.
In 1974 he was admitted to the Royal Society (the royal academy of science in Great Britain, founded in 1660), and a year later Pope Paul VI awarded him and Roger Penrose the Pius XI Gold Medal of Science. Stephen Hawking also received the Albert Einstein Prize and the Hughes Medal from the Royal Society.
Hawking established himself so well in the scientific community that in 1979 he was appointed professor of mathematics at the University of Cambridge in England, a position he would hold for the next 30 years. This position was once held by Sir Isaac Newton.
In 1980 he was made a Commander of the British Empire, which comes second in honor to knighthood. He also became an Honorary Member of the society, which has no more than 65 members at a time who have distinguished themselves before the nation.
In 2009, Hawking received the highest civilian honor in the United States, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Despite the fact that Hawking was awarded at least 12 honorary degrees, something eludes him.
Writes books for children
One of the least expected facts about Stephen Hawking's life is that he is a children's author. In 2007, Stephen and his daughter Lucy Hawking co-authored George's Secret Key to the Universe.
This is a fantasy story about a boy, George, who goes against his parents' rejection of technology. The boy begins to make friends with a physicist neighbor who has the most powerful computer in the world and can open portals to outer space.
Of course, much of the book is devoted to explaining heavy scientific concepts, such as black holes and the origin of life, in simple children's language. Hence Hawking’s fame as a popularizer, who always sought to explain his works in accessible language.
The second part of the book was published in 2009 under the title "George's Cosmic Treasure Hunt."
Believes in alien life
Given Hawking's knowledge of cosmology, people are extremely interested in why the great scientist believes that we are not alone in the Universe. At NASA's 50th anniversary in 2008, Hawking was given the floor and shared his thoughts on this matter.
The cosmologist noted that given the size of the Universe, the existence of even primitive, and perhaps intelligent, life is quite acceptable.
"Primitive life is very common," Hawking said. - “Reasonable is a rarity.”
Of course, Hawking did not do without sarcasm: “Some might say that life originated on Earth.” However, he cautioned that alien life may not have originated from DNA, and we may not be immune to alien diseases.
Hawking believes that aliens could use the resources of their own planet and "become nomads, taking over and colonizing all the planets they can reach." Or they could create a system of mirrors, focus the sun's energy on one point and create a wormhole for travel through space-time.
Traveled to zero gravity to save humanity
In 2007, when Hawking was 65 years old, he realized his lifelong dream. He experienced zero gravity and floated in a special chair, thanks to the Zero Gravity company. The corporation provides a service in which people flying on a plane that rises and descends sharply can experience a state of weightlessness for about 25 seconds over several rounds.
Hawking, freed from a wheelchair for the first time in decades, was even able to perform a gymnastic somersault. But the most interesting thing in all this is not what he was able to do, but why. When asked why he needed this flight, he, of course, noted his desire to go to space. But the reasons are much deeper.
Due to the possibility of global warming or nuclear war, as Hawking noted, the future of the human race may involve a long flight through outer space. Hawking supports private space research (such as activities and SpaceX) in hopes that space tourism will soon become a public domain. And we will be able to travel to other planets to survive. By the way, it was opened not so long ago. Perhaps someday there will be human cities on it.
STOCKHOLM, March 14. /TASS/. English theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking was never awarded the Nobel Prize, despite numerous proposals to award his scientific contributions the most prestigious award in the field of science.
A possible explanation for this is that so far no one has been able to scientifically confirm the truth of the famous discoveries of a world-famous scientist who has done a lot to popularize science, Professor at Stockholm University Edvard Mörtsel said in an interview with Swedish Radio.
“The fact that they (the scientific conclusions) were not confirmed by observations was the main obstacle,” said Mörtsel, who himself works on dark matter and the expansion of the Universe. He also explained that the Nobel Prize is awarded not for lifetime contributions to science, but for a specific scientific discovery.
Hawking's main fame came from the so-called Hawking radiation - the theory that black holes are not actually completely black and emit radiation, albeit very weakly. However, no one has yet been able to confirm the effectiveness of this theory in practice.
“The problem with the Hawking radiation feature is that generally the larger, the more massive the object, the more radiation is expected from it, whereas with Hawking radiation the opposite is true,” added Maertsel. “The smaller the object, the more energy it has.” and the stronger its light emission. It is possible that it will be necessary to create black holes in laboratory conditions to observe them." He is absolutely confident that this may be possible in the future.
Stephen William Hawking
Stephen William Hawking died on Wednesday at the age of 76 at his home in Cambridge. He was born on January 8, 1942 in Oxford. In 1963, he was diagnosed with amyotrophic sclerosis.
Another 22 years later, after pneumonia, the scientist suffered a tracheostomy, as a result of which he lost the ability to speak and began to use a speech synthesizer. However, a serious illness did not prevent Hawking from becoming one of the most famous theoretical physicists of our time.
Hawking's main area of scientific research is cosmology and quantum gravity, and he devoted a lot of time to the study of black holes. In particular, the British physicist is the author of the theory of “evaporation” of black holes due to radiation (this phenomenon is called “Hawking radiation”).
- Stephen Hawking was born in Oxford on January 8, 1942 - exactly 300 years after the death of astronomer Galileo Galilei. At the age of 21, he was diagnosed with a rare form of motor neuron disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Doctors gave him several years to live.
- At school, Stephen was a fairly mediocre student, but was good at mathematics and had a "promiscuous interest in chemistry." At nine years old, his grades were among the worst in his class. At the same time, his teachers recognized his genius, so he even earned the nickname “Einstein.”
Stephen Hawking on the set of Star Trek with the actors playing Einstein and Newton
- His father wanted Stephen to go into medicine, but he had no interest in biology. He considered it "too inaccurate." As a result, at Oxford he took up particle theory and cosmology, since these areas were little studied by man and offered a lot of opportunities.
- At a meeting of the Royal Society, Hawking interrupted the lecture of the famous astrophysicist Sir Fred Hoyle to inform him that he had made a mistake. When asked how he discovered the error, Hawking replied: “I just had it all figured out in my head.”
With Bill Gates
- During the 1970s, Hawking made his major discoveries, including perhaps his most important contribution to cosmology: the discovery of Hawking radiation (black holes emit energy until they run out). Even before the publication of his work, Hawking visited Moscow in 1973, where he met with Soviet scientists. They demonstrated to Hawking that, according to the uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics, spinning black holes should generate and emit particles. In 1987, he met in Moscow with Academician Sakharov.
Image: Liam White/Alarmy Stock Photo
- In the 1980s, Professor Hawking and Professor Jim Hartle proposed a model of the Universe that had no boundaries in space and time. The concept was described in A Brief History of Time, which sold 25 million copies worldwide. Hawking compares the Universe to our planet - “no matter where you go, the Earth has no edge,” but the planet exists only in two dimensions, and the Universe in four.
- In 1985, Stephen Hawking developed pneumonia. His condition was so serious that doctors wanted to take him off life support. His wife Jane refused, and doctors performed a tracheotomy to save Stephen's life. So he lost the ability to speak and since then communicated using a voice synthesizer, and refused to change his “voice” when Intel suggested it to him.
- Hawking is something of a science pop star. He has appeared in The Simpsons, Star Trek, The Big Bang Theory and on a Pink Floyd album.
