RIP Stephen Hawking


A British scientist, professor and author of many groundbreaking works in the field of physics and cosmology, which inspired many generations to take up physics as a subject, and reignited their love for physics. He ushered the world’s fascination with black holes. Despite his ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease—which was beautifully captured in the movie The Theory of Everything (2014), he went to achieve great heights from his book, A Brief History of Time, which become an account of brief introduction for cosmology and was found helpful by the masses. He always wanted to unify the study of cosmology and quantum mechanics and look for unique ways to find out the deep and unknown questions of how the universe began.
He was quite vocal about his idea of God. In his book The Grand Design, he spoke against the idea of creation of the universe of the God. He come to many conclusion that the big bang was purely on the law of physics, because he curiously said, “"Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing.”

Just to give a glimpse of how much people adore his ideas:
When Stephen Hawking was invited for a lecture in Japan, he was asked not to mention the possible recollapse of the universe billions of years into the future.
​Reason????
For the fear of the effects it would have on the Stock Market!!!
​​He quotes :
When I gave a lecture in Japan, I was asked not to mention the possible re-collapse of the universe, because it might affect the stock market. However, I can re-assure anyone who is nervous about their investments that it is a bit early to sell: even if the universe does come to an end, it won't be for at least twenty billion years. By that time, maybe the GATT trade agreement will have come into effect.

Some of his memorable works:


  • His work on singularities—A gravitational singularity is a one-dimensional point which contains infinite mass in an infinitely small space—was path-breaking which proved that the universe might have begun from singularities.
  • He showed that black holes emit radiation, it came to be known as Hawking Radiation.

    • He gave a theory of cosmic inflation, which is now widely accepted.
    Oops, I forgot about the awards. He is one of those scientist that Google page needs to be scrolled in order to collate all his awards:

    More than an excellent physicist, he was a brilliant human being who inspired generations of people. He was a beacon of hope to patients with life-threatening disease, a strong force to those who were giving up on their life, and a lover to his wife. Despite his vegetative state and diminishing physical state, he kept on studying and contribution to his first love - physics.


    RIP, Sir* Stephen Hawking.

    *He would have had been knighted but he declined that recognition. Such is the stature of this man. Source: Why hasn’t Stephen Hawking been knighted?


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