Thread: Stephen Hawking hospitalized, reported very ill

'A Brief History of Time' and 'The Universe in a Nutshell' are two of my favorite books, I hope he gets better.

Originally Posted by Kanahmal

'A Brief History of Time' and 'The Universe in a Nutshell' are two of my favorite books, I hope he gets better.

+1 i really like these books because they make me feel like i could understand what he is talking about even though i have no physics background. after reading his book it is pretty easy to assume that though he is very infuential in many ways, he isn't alone in that, just well known.

i hope he recovers fully.

I think that is a huge part of his contribution to the sciences. He made it accessible to the layman. Sure he may not be head and shoulders above his peers but he is increasing exposure and understanding which is a big deal in any science.


Oh and I read something this morning that he is recovering well and should come out fine. At his age and with his circumstances though no telling how much longer he has. I'm still in awe of his ability to survive this long.

Originally Posted by TomSD

I think that is a huge part of his contribution to the sciences. He made it accessible to the layman. Sure he may not be head and shoulders above his peers but he is increasing exposure and understanding which is a big deal in any science.

Completely true. Stephen's biggest impact is not in science itself (although the man is quite brilliant) but in exposing common people to physics in a way that captures their imagination. And that is very important in any scientific field. His books are really good.

What do you guys see as his biggest contribution to science? (Let's ignore his storytelling capabilities for the moment)

I think that his work is being heavily discounted in this thread.

Originally Posted by sparq

I think that his work is being heavily discounted in this thread.

I didn't realize this thread has anything at all to do with "his work". I thought it was simply about his health.

I don't think his work is being discounted. All I see is people discussing the difference between his methods and those of other scientists. He is the rock star of his field. Every field needs one to make the public aware of the importance and relevance of their field. The fact that he is brilliant just makes it that much more impressive.

Originally Posted by sparq

What do you guys see as his biggest contribution to science? (Let's ignore his storytelling capabilities for the moment)

I think that his work is being heavily discounted in this thread.

That was certainly not my intention. I also acknowledged that the man is quite brilliant. But because of his superstar status, many people think that he is the most scientifically valuable person of the last n decades.

Personally I rate Ed Witten higher. But regardless of that: Roger Penrose, Ed Witten, Kip Thorne, Michio Kaku, Freeman Dyson, Murray Gell-mann, Gerard 't Hoofd, ... and I am probably forgetting a number of physicists which are in the same league as Hawking and of which I read at least one book or publication.

Just because he is the superstar does not mean that he automatically contributed most to the science.

But I digress.

Imo his most interesting work was in hawking decay in an atom core on one side of the spectrum, and the no-hair theory on the other side of the spectrum. I also liked his bubble theory writings in one of his latest books.

He has written about a large number of things, and I don't understand most of it. But the things I mentioned (decay and no hair) are understandable enough that I can grasp them, even if the math is completely beyond me.

By the time I finished my masters in electronics, I considered going for a masters in theoretical physics. But by then I got offered a contract at the placed where I made my thesis, and the job was great.
I also looked at the curriculum, and came to the conclusion that the math required was an order of magnitude more difficult than what I'd already gone through, and that it would probably be beyond my reach to graduate, let alone be brilliant enough to get a phd in qc and land one of the really interesting jobs.

Originally Posted by Bruno

Personally I rate Ed Witten higher. But regardless of that: Roger Penrose, Ed Witten, Kip Thorne, Michio Kaku, Freeman Dyson, Murray Gell-mann, Gerard 't Hoofd, ... and I am probably forgetting a number of physicists which are in the same league as Hawking and of which I read at least one book or publication.

what, not feynman?
Richard Feynman - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

anyhow, i'm glad he's recovering, they've been holding a vigil of sorts for him over on /. and folks have been discussing his contributions to the world of science. i'm going to have to take the plunge and say the best thing he did to make science accessible to the masses was have the guts to parody himself (repeatedly) on Futurama.

Originally Posted by sparq

What do you guys see as his biggest contribution to science? (Let's ignore his storytelling capabilities for the moment)

I think that his work is being heavily discounted in this thread.

The singularities and in particular the no-hair theorem. He did loose that bet with Kip and Preskill though

These are significant contributions, but he is no Feynman or Einstein, or Fermi, Dirac, Heisenberg etc.

Carl Sagan for example was a good scientists but I think his contributions to popularizing science are a lot bigger than those qualifying as new science.

Brian Greene is also a celebrity, and a very good scientist, but not the same league as the top guys.