Stephen Hawking: Ten Pearls Of Wisdom

Professor Stephen Hawking Photo: DISCOVERY CHANNEL

From The Telegraph:

After Professor Stephen Hawking apparently rubbished the idea of a God, claiming the Big Bang was an inevitable result of physics, here are ten of our favourite quotes.

Stephen Hawking on why the universe exists:

"If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason – for then we would know the mind of God."

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Stephen Hawking Says There's No Theory Of Everything

From New Scientist:

Craig Callender, contributor

Three decades ago, Stephen Hawking famously declared that a "theory of everything" was on the horizon, with a 50 per cent chance of its completion by 2000. Now it is 2010, and Hawking has given up. But it is not his fault, he says: there may not be a final theory to discover after all. No matter; he can explain the riddles of existence without it.

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Being Stephen Hawking

Stephen Hawking

From Discovery:

Sir John Maddox, twice the editor of the journal Nature, was one of the most thoughtful voices in science journalism of the past five decades. He died on April 12 of this year, but his spirit lives on in this unique appreciation of Stephen Hawking, appearing in publication for the first time. Also see the related look at Hawking's recent work, "Stephen Hawking Is Making His Comeback."

On November 30 of 2006, in the august premises of the Royal Society of London, I had dinner with professor Stephen Hawking. To boast of having had dinner with Hawking creates a false impression. The circumstances were these. Since the summer I had been badgering the “graduate assistant to Professor Hawking” for an interview. Early in November, word came that Hawking was to receive the Copley Medal, the most venerable of the Royal Society’s gifts. I was invited; the date was plainly a license to join the scrum around the wheelchair after the group photographs had been taken.

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Stephen Hawking: "Humans Have Entered A New Stage Of Evolution"

From The Daily Galaxy:

Although It has taken homo sapiens several million years to evolve from the apes, the useful information in our DNA, has probably changed by only a few million bits. So the rate of biological evolution in humans, Stephen Hawking points out in his Life in the Universe lecture, is about a bit a year.

"By contrast," Hawking says, "there are about 50,000 new books published in the English language each year, containing of the order of a hundred billion bits of information. Of course, the great majority of this information is garbage, and no use to any form of life. But, even so, the rate at which useful information can be added is millions, if not billions, higher than with DNA."

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Physicist Stephen Hawking Very Ill And In Hospital

Photo: Stephen Hawking (Wikimedia Commons)

From Yahoo News/Reuters:

LONDON (Reuters) – Physicist Stephen Hawking, the author of "A Brief History of Time" who is almost completely paralyzed by motor neurone disease, has been urgently admitted to hospital, Cambridge University said on Monday.

Hawking, 67, was taken by ambulance to a local hospital in Cambridge, where he teaches as a professor of applied mathematics and theoretical physics.

"Professor Hawking is very ill and has been taken by ambulance to Addenbrooke's Hospital," the university said.

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More News On Stephen Hawking

Stephen Hawking hospitalized, reported very ill -- AP
Scientist Hawking ill in hospital -- BBC
Physicist Hawking hospitalized -- UPI
Physicist Stephen Hawking hospitalized, "very ill" -- Scientific American
Stephen Hawking rushed to hospital -- CBC
Scientist Stephen Hawking 'very ill': university -- AFP
FACTBOX - Physicist Stephen Hawking -- Reuters

Hawking: If We Survive The Next 200 Years, We Should Be OK

Stephen Hawking, here delivering a lecture in May, spoke recently to CNN about his vision of the future. (Photo from CNN)

From CNN:

CAMBRIDGE, England (CNN) -- Professor Stephen Hawking, one of the world's great scientists, is looking to the stars to save the human race -- but pessimism is overriding his natural optimism.

Hawking, in an exclusive CNN interview, said that if humans can survive the next 200 years and learn to live in space, then our future will be bright.

"I believe that the long-term future of the human race must be in space," said Hawking, who is almost completely paralyzed by the illness ALS.

"It will be difficult enough to avoid disaster on planet Earth in the next 100 years, let alone next thousand, or million. The human race shouldn't have all its eggs in one basket, or on one planet. Let's hope we can avoid dropping the basket until we have spread the load."

Hawking is one of the few scientists known to a wide audience outside academia thanks to his best-selling books, a guest spot on "The Simpsons" and an ability to clearly explain the complexities of theoretical physics.

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Stephen Hawking: Big Bang Experiment Could Finally Earn Me A Nobel Prize

From The Daily Mail:

Experts around the world are eagerly awaiting the switch on of the world's biggest scientific experiment, and none more so than Professor Stephen Hawking.

The £5billion Large Hadron Collider aims to recreate the conditions moments after the Big Bang that created the universe.

It could offer Professor Hawking his best chance so far of winning a Nobel prize if it confirms his theory that black holes give off radiation.

He told the BBC: 'If the LHC were to produce little black holes, I don't think there's any doubt I would get a Nobel prize, if they showed the properties I predict.

'However, I think the probability that the LHC has enough energy to create black holes, is less than 1 per cent, so I'm not holding my breath.'

The British physicist put forward his idea in the 1970s but it proved controversial because many scientists believed nothing could escape the gravitational pull of a black hole.

Although Hawking's theory has become accepted by the profession is remains unproven. Nobel prizes in physics are awarded only when there is experimental evidence for a new phenomenon.

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at Cern may produce microscopic black holes that could evaporate in a flash of Hawking radiation.

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