Stephen Hawking: modern cosmology's brightest star dies aged 76

[lpetrich]

Backreaction: Stephen Hawking dies at 76. What was he famous for? Sabine Hossenfelder described his contributions to general relativity and black-hole physics.

His first big work was his singularity theorems. He showed that under certain conditions, like gravitational collapse without strong-enough counterbalancing pressure, singularities always form. These are regions of infinite curvature, where some space has collapsed to zero volume.

He also discovered that according to quantum mechanics, black holes have temperatures, and that a black hole has a glow with that temperature -- Hawking radiation. That glow is very weak for all but the tiniest black holes, but it nevertheless makes a black hole lose mass. So black holes will evaporate into space. His colleague Jacob Bekenstein had already noticed some thermodynamic-like behavior of black holes, and he (SH) confirmed the resemblance.

He also did some popularization, like with his book "A Brief History of Time".

 

[lpetrich]

A Bunch of Religious People Think Stephen Hawking Is Currently Burning in Hell – Friendly Atheist -- including a video from someone who claimed that he deserved it because he denied Jesus Christ.

 

[TSwizzle]

A Bunch of Religious People Think Stephen Hawking Is Currently Burning in Hell – Friendly Atheist -- including a video from someone who claimed that he deserved it because he denied Jesus Christ.

I guess suffering ALS was not punishment enough for some. I watched the short video at the end where "Ben The Baptist" goes on a rant about Hawking being in hell. Religion is a mental disorder.

 

[Malintent]

Steven Hawking passed away

On Pie day, Wednesday, March 14, Steven Hawking finally succumbed to ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease). The greatest mind to date is no more, but his legacy will last for eternity. He was a giant, whose shoulders will be stood upon for centuries.

That he lived so long was amazing. ALS generally kills within 5 years. Steven Hawking lived with it for 50 years (dying at age 76)... which is extremely rare. My Mother died of it in the early 90's, after being diagnosed only 4 years prior.

Some have said it was the illness itself that forced Steven to use his imagination to work out complex problems, because using a pen and paper was basically out of the question. Having a genius mind trapped in a failing body led him to more creative forms of calculation and hypothesis.

I took care of my mother when the disease paralyzed her, and communication between us was nearly impossible. I had to point at letters on a chart and watch to see if she blinked... and spell everything out. It took like 15 minutes for her to tell me a bug was crawling on her, while tears were streaming down her face because she couldn't just swat it away.

That Steven accomplished so much with such a disadvantage is simply amazing.

 

[Underseer]

I feel melancholy for atheist physicists who seem obsessed by the search for a godless theory of everything.
I wonder if that motivation kept Stephen Hawking alive beyond what many scientists expected would be a short life.

No one is obsessed with disproving claims that you never proved, so your worry is completely unfounded.

Hawking lost no more sleep worrying about whether or not your claims are true than you lose worrying about whether or not Hinduism is true.

 

[Lion IRC]

Really?
I thought that a goal of science was not to prove theories right, but to prove them wrong.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Really?
I thought that a goal of science was not to prove theories right, but to prove them wrong.

Are you using the word theories instead of hypotheses on purpose or do you not realize there is a difference?

Regardless, the point of having a discussion usually is to share ideas, not try to get clever with words and pretend to make a point.

 

[Elixir]

Really?
I thought that a goal of science was not to prove theories right, but to prove them wrong.

Are you using the word theories instead of hypotheses on purpose or do you not realize there is a difference?

Regardless, the point of having a discussion usually is to share ideas, not try to get clever with words and pretend to make a point.

Religious nutbars have their own lexicon - a "theory" is any hairbrained idea that the wish were true. I don't think they have a word for "hypothesis". And they certainly don't recognize any "theory" as representing the highest level of scientific confidence...

 

[braces_for_impact]

In case no one posted this before I did. Curiosity Stream is letting people view Stephen's Hawking's Favorite Places free of charge until March 26th. It's a short 3 part series, only about a half hour per episode.

 

[Lion IRC]

Really?
I thought that a goal of science was not to prove theories right, but to prove them wrong.

Are you using the word theories instead of hypotheses on purpose or do you not realize there is a difference?

Regardless, the point of having a discussion usually is to share ideas, not try to get clever with words and pretend to make a point.

Religious nutbars have their own lexicon - a "theory" is any hairbrained idea that the wish were true. I don't think they have a word for "hypothesis". And they certainly don't recognize any "theory" as representing the highest level of scientific confidence...

I guess I really should have posted the link to the source from which I stole the word "theory".
https://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/scientific-experiments/scientific-method9.htm

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Religious nutbars have their own lexicon - a "theory" is any hairbrained idea that the wish were true. I don't think they have a word for "hypothesis". And they certainly don't recognize any "theory" as representing the highest level of scientific confidence...

I guess I really should have posted the link to the source from which I stole the word "theory".
https://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/scientific-experiments/scientific-method9.htm

Well golly... you got some infomation on the Internetz. No wonder you be super smarts on science.

Regardless, what in the heck was your point?

 

[Tom Sawyer]

What's the worry about his burning in Hell? ALS kills nerve cells, so no matter what nasty instruments of torture they stab him with, he's not going to feel it. Stupid demons.

Guess you really can't expect much more from a group of people who thought "Hey, let's go pick a fight with this omnipotent guy" was a good idea.

 

[Jobar]

People have overinflated his contributions to science to be honest. If you asked a physicist to list what he or she considered the top 5 most important physicist alive as of yesterday, I doubt Hawking would have been on the list for many.

I disagree. From his Wikipedia page-

Stephen William Hawking CH CBE FRS FRSA (8 January 1942 – 14 March 2018) was an English theoretical physicist, cosmologist, author, and Director of Research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology within the University of Cambridge.[14][15] His scientific works included a collaboration with Roger Penrose on gravitational singularity theorems in the framework of general relativity and the theoretical prediction that black holes emit radiation, often called Hawking radiation. Hawking was the first to set out a theory of cosmology explained by a union of the general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics. He was a vigorous supporter of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.[16][17]

Hawking was an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA), a lifetime 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 the BBC's poll of the 100 Greatest Britons. He was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge between 1979 and 2009 and achieved commercial success with works of popular science in which he discusses his own theories and cosmology in general. His book A Brief History of Time appeared on the British Sunday Times best-seller list for a record-breaking 237 weeks.

Okay, he didn't win a Nobel Prize for his scientific work; but that work was still world class physics.

Plus-

At the release party for the home video version of the A Brief History of Time, Leonard Nimoy, who had played Spock on Star Trek, learned that Hawking was interested in appearing on the show. Nimoy made the necessary contact, and Hawking played a holographic simulation of himself in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation in 1993.[344][345][346] The same year, his synthesizer voice was recorded for the Pink Floyd song "Keep Talking",[347][170] and in 1999 for an appearance on The Simpsons.
...
Hawking was featured at the Monty Python Live (Mostly) in 2014. He was shown to sing an extended version of the Galaxy Song, after running down Brian Cox with his wheelchair, in a pre-recorded video.

My own reaction to anyone with that sort of curriculum vitae-




AND, on top of all that, he lived a fairly long life with a disease that normally kills you young.

Not just a great scientist; a great man.

 

[ZiprHead]

Whoa, I didn't realize that was Hawking on that PF song.

 

[bilby]

Whoa, I didn't realize that was Hawking on that PF song.

It doesn't have to be like this.

 

[Rhea]

I got into a bit of a kerfluffle on facebook as someone said, “he was actulaly a jerk, he told this one kid he was an idiot for believing in god. Can you imagine a what a jerk it takes to call someone an idiot just for believing diffrently?” And how sad that he was ‘t a christian and was going to burn in hell.


Of course my knee-jerk reaction (irony noted in context of Hawking who has none) was, “hang on, wait. The CHURCH is being used as a pedastal from which someone is being called a jerk for dismissing the beliefs of others? You of the ‘what place has wickedness with righteousness’? You of ‘only a fool does not believe’? Are you freaking kidding me? If I had a dime for every Christian who told me I was ‘less than’ for being an atheist, if I had a mere penny for every bible out there that you carry around with that very phrase worshipfully caressed... wow. Chutzpah.”

 

[ZiprHead]

Whoa, I didn't realize that was Hawking on that PF song.

It doesn't have to be like this.

It isn't now that I know.

 

[Shake]

He certainly defied the odds for a long time. I was still quite surprised to hear of his passing. We have lost one of the greatest minds of our time.

I was supremely disgusted to hear certain religious figures basically shitting on the memory of him by saying that he's, "no longer an atheist," or implying that he was now in hell.

 

[Lion IRC]

Yes, that's disgusting.
It's like atheists here trashing Billy Graham

 

[Juma]

Yes, that's disgusting.
It's like atheists here trashing Billy Graham

Is if? Wasnt it abot time for Billy? He must have been very old.