STEPHAN HAWKING
Stephen William Hawking was an English theoretical physicist,
cosmologist, and author who was director of research at the Centre
for Theoretical Cosmology at the University of Cambridge at the time
of his death.
Born: 8 January 1942, Oxford, United Kingdom
Died: 14 March 2018, Cambridge, United Kingdom
Achievements
One of his greatest achievements was his life itself. How he grappled
a fatal form of ALS to live 55 years when medical facts had only
predicted a 3 year life span post diagnosis.
Hawking Radiations –
Stephen Hawking proved that given the Quantum nature of particles, it
cannot be said that the black hole traps everything. They emit
radiations and particles. This emission can possibly continue until
the black hole evaporates. These radiations became known as Hawking
Radiations. Creation of the universe – Applying the concepts of
Quantum physics and general relativity he proved that the Universe was
created due to the explosion of singularity trapped in an infinetly
small space and that no creator was involved in the process. This
theory was widely accepted and also helped scrutinize the behaviour of
black holes and furthermore the nature of the universe.
An international Best seller–
The most complicated concepts of physics are served to the readers
with utmost clarity and lucidity in his Book “A Brief History of
Time”. The book sold out over 10 million copies and was translated to
40 languages. The media called him, The Master of Universe. In
addition he published several other books which did gain a lot of
attention. Black Holes and Baby Universes and other essays (1993), The
Universe in a Nutshell(2001), On the shoulder of the Giants (2002) and
God created the integers: The Mathematical Breakthroughs that changes
History (2005)
Singularity–
With the aid of English mathematician and physicist Roger
Penrose, Hawking proved that the universe was a infinitely small seed
of singularity which exploded to become the vastness that it is today.
A gravitational singularity is boundless energy and mass trapped
inside an infinitely small space, within which the forces and laws of
physics cease to behave normal as everything becomes a function of
infinity. Mechanics of Black Holes – Alongside James Bardeen and
Brandon Carter Hawking discovered the four laws of black hole
mechanics. These laws comprehend the behavior of the physical
properties of the Black holes like mass, charge, entropy, surface area
etc. these laws are analogous to the Laws of Thermodynamics.
Cosmic Inflation–
Cosmic inflation was a theory proposed by Alan Guth in 1980
which proposed the exponential expansion of the universe following the
big bang and later settled to a slower expansion. Hawking calculated
Quantum fluctuations resulting from cosmic inflation to demonstrate
how they are capable of giving rise to spread of galaxies in the
universe. The time when there was no time – In 1983 Alongside James
Hartle, Stephen Hawking suggested a model of the formation of universe
where in he concluded from the behavior of particles as per Quantum
physics that time did not exist before the genesis of the universe.
Top-down cosmology –
The universe according to Stephen Hawking’s theory of top-down
cosmology(2006) had not just one but many possible initial conditions.
Thomas Hertog who was a co-researcher in this study had a strong
argument to believe that. In the words of Hertog – “Quantum mechanics
forbids a single theory”. Both Hawking and Hertog, believed that the
concept of innumerable alternate worlds as put forward in famous
string theory has strong grounds. Zero G Flight – The then 65 year old
man with ALS, glued to a wheelchair, had a lifelong dream of breaking
free from the confinement. And owing to the efforts of serial
entrepreneur Peter Diamandis Hawking did experience a freedom like
never before. On April 26, 2007, Diamandis’ Zero G team successfully
executed Hawking’s zero gravity flight.