What's the story on him? What is it that he's "known" for?
I've read some of his bio, but I can't figure out how he got to be popular. He's even had at least two guest appearance on the Simpson's.
Anyone?
lisa
Stephen Hawking
by lisavegas420 16 Replies latest jw friends
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quietlyleaving
Stephen Hawking is an amazing British scientist - a physicist and theoretician.
He has MS now but is still active intellectually
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White Dove
One of my favorite authors!
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zagor
In a nutshell he provided mathematical proof for the Big Bang theory, which was not completely of his doing. Method applied was originally developed by Sir Roger Penrose who postulated the existence of singularity inside of the black holes. What Hawkins essentially proposed was that the Big Bang was black hole in reverse where all matter we see around us sprang forth from singularity at the beginning of time in our universe. That would be a very limited explanation.
I think he got his ‘rock star’ status largely due to his condition (Lou Gehrig’s Disease) which made him an icon of science. Like any other field science loves to have heroes to look up to like Einstein or Newton. But as insightful as he is I would dare to say that there are number of other theoretical physicists and mathematicians who are just as brilliant including a number of Nobel laureates but are generally not recognized or heard of because of being seen as "too ordinary".A good place to start is the book Stephen Hawking - Quest for a Theory of everything The Story of His Life and Work by Kitty Ferguson, I've got it in my library a pretty good rundown of his life.
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CyrusThePersian
Stephen Hawking does not have MS. He has Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), a dibilitating disease that leaves him confined to a wheelchair, virtually unable to move. Despite that, he has written the most successful science book of our era, A Brief History of Time, as well as many others.
It was he that discovered many of the aspects of Black Holes and formulated many of the theories concerning the origin of the universe, a truly amazing fellow!
Like Zagor said, there are a lot of great scientists around today that are contributing much to our knowledge base. What sets Hawking apart is that he, like Carl Sagan before him, is a great popularizer of science, making science accessible to dimwits like me, who ordinarily wouldn't know a singularity from a single's bar!
CyrusThePersian
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Elsewhere
He also proved that things can in fact get out of a Black Hole in the form of Hawking Radiation. Aside from the fact that things are getting out, his equations were the first in the world to combine equations from General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. At the time this was considered impossible by many people.
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lisavegas420
thank you all. I think I got it. He's a brilliant man, but or inspike of his handicapp, and will to continue, he obtained (I liked this phrase) 'rockstar' status.
very interesting.
I'm imagining that he also has a great sense of humor.
lisa
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White Dove
I'm going to buy that book about his life and work.
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zagor
I don't know if it is on Amazon, probably is but I'm to tired to search. Here is the link to other site you can see more about it.
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Velvetann
Stephen has Lou Gehrig's disease which is much worse than MS. Only his head works. He should have been dead years ago, he is AMAZING.
