The Life and Work of Stephen Hawking
1942 - 2018
Photo by motivatetolive.com
His life...
By Taylor Jamison, Staff Writer
03/20/2018
Stephen Hawking is most often known for his work as a physicist, but his life went beyond working to understand the universe. He was the first of Frank and Isobel Hawking’s four children, and both of his parents were particularly intelligent people. Isobel Hawking attended Oxford University in the 1930s, when few women had the opportunity to get a college education, and Frank Hawking was an Oxford graduate who researched tropical diseases.
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Hawking was only 21 when he was diagnosed with a rare form of ALS, known as Motor Neurone Disease or MND. According to ABC News, the life expectancy of someone diagnosed with MND is between two or three years, with the majority dying within five. Hawking, despite all odds, would live for more than five decades after his diagnosis. The disease first took his ability to walk, after which he moved via wheelchair, and by 1985 he lost all ability to speak after pneumonia forced doctors to perform a tracheotomy. From then on, he would speak through a computer controlled by a sensor attached to his cheek. An interview by Scientific American with Leo McCluskey, associate professor of neurology and medical director of the ALS Center at the University of Pennsylvania, described not only the rarity of Hawking’s case, but that it could give “hope for patients who have it that they could also live a long life.”
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Though he would be eventually known for the humor he showed towards his disability, Hawking did not always have such a positive outlook on his prognosis. According to Independent, after his diagnosis, Hawking had “taken to his room at Cambridge, listening to Wagner, reading science fiction, drinking and doing very little research work.”
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He dealt with serious depression and anger, all of which was observed by his future wife, Jane Wilde. The two were married in July 1965, which Hawking called “something to live for.” They had 3 children, and the addition of a family to his life motivated Hawking to resume working and take his doctorate work seriously once more.
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The two would eventually divorce in the late 1980s, after which Hawking married Elaine Mason, one of his nurses. This marriage was a more controversial one, as Independent states there were “widely publicized, but unproven allegations of abuse.” Hawking denied having been a victim to any type of abuse, and responded by saying, “My wife and I love each other very much, and it is only because of her that I am alive today.” The two, however, eventually divorced as well.
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Aside from being someone surrounded by love and support, both through family and fans, Hawking was known for his sense of humor. In an interview with John Oliver, Hawking stated that because there could be an infinite number of parallel universes, there could be “a universe where you’re funny.” In a 2013 documentary, Hawking said that “Keeping an active mind has been vital to my survival, as has maintain a sense of humor.”
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Despite the odds stacked against him and the many challenges he faced, Hawking became a symbol of perseverance and positivity under harsh circumstances. He valued family and love, and succeeded with his disability, not in spite of it.
..and his work
By Grace Shoeniger, Staff Writer
03/20/2018
Stephen Hawking once said, “The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.”
Through his work, Hawking fought hard against this great enemy and expanded human knowledge of the universe and its inner workings.
Hawking began studying physics, focusing on cosmology, at Oxford University when he was 17. He went on to receive his Ph.D. from Cambridge University in cosmology in 1965, with a thesis titled “Properties of Expanding Universes”.
Beginning as a research fellow at the University of Cambridge in 1965, he progressed to become the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1979, one of the most prestigious academic posts in the world that was once held by Sir Isaac Newton.
Hawking’s specialty was theoretical physics and mathematics, which he used to do research focusing largely on black holes.
In arguably his most influential paper, “Black hole explosions?” Hawking shook the scientific community. Published in 1974, Hawking combined the two pillars of physics, quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity, specifically looking at the behavior of particles at the edge of a black hole, called it’s event horizon. He found something not even he believed at first. Contrary to what was believed at the time, black holes were shown to not be the all-consuming vacuums once thought. Through his calculations, Hawking was able to show that black holes emit radiation, dubbed “Hawking Radiation.” This showed that black holes are not the static system they were once thought of.
Following logic, Hawking found that as black holes emit radiation, they must decrease in mass and the higher the rate of radiation, the faster mass is lost. As mass is lost, the black hole shrinks and emits radiation faster, until it eventually evaporates and explodes. The time a black hole can survive is directly proportional to its mass cubed.
This discovery acts in accordance with the second law of thermodynamics, that the entropy of the universe must always be increasing.
Hawking was just 32 years old.
This sparked a heated debate within the cosmology community. If black holes eventually disappear, what happens to their information? It goes against everything believed to say the information contained in this physical system would just disappear. This “black hole information paradox” is still under dispute but Hawking, for one, ended up believing that a black hole’s information is stored in it’s event horizon and encoded in the radiation that leaks out.
Outside of the scientific community, Hawking was best known for bringing the science surrounding the cosmos to the level of regular citizens, not only Ph.D. recipients.
Hawking authored the best-selling book, “A Brief History of Time: From the Big bang to Black Holes,” specifically geared for non experienced readers. He was able to reach a broad audience about a very dense, technical subject, a skill that many scientists could take lessons from. He became one of science’s greatest communicators from his ability to appeal to the masses and break down complex theories, largely thanks to his editors who pushed him to continuously simplify his writing.
Through his appearances on popular shows such as The Big Bang Theory and the Simpsons, Hawking brought the world of physics into many homes.
Hawking once wrote, ““I hope that… [A Brief History of Time] gives people the feeling that they need not be cut off from the great intellectual and philosophical questions.”
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Other books published by Hawking include: “The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time”, “Black Holes and Baby Universes, and other Essays,” “Universe in a Nutshell,” “The Theory of Everything: The Origin and Fate of the Universe,” as well as many scientific papers.