Stephen Hawking Dead at 76
World renowned physicist Stephen Hawking has died at the age of 76.
BBC reports that the British scientist died peacefully at his home in Cambridge in the early hours of Wednesday.
Hawking’s discoveries:
– With the Oxford mathematician Roger Penrose, he showed that if there was a Big Bang, it must have started from an infinitely small point – a singularity
– Black holes radiate energy known as Hawking radiation, while gradually losing mass. This is due to quantum effects near the edge of the black hole, a region called the event horizon
– He predicted the existence of mini-black holes at the time of the Big Bang. These black holes would have shed mass until they vanished, potentially ending their lives in an explosion that would release vast amounts of energy
– In the 1970s, Hawking considered whether the particles and light that enter a black hole were ultimately destroyed if the black hole evaporated. Hawking initially thought that this “information” was lost from the Universe. But the US physicist Leonard Susskind disagreed. These ideas became known as the information paradox. In 2004, Hawking conceded that the information must be conserved
"Look up at the stars and not down at your feet" – Professor Stephen Hawking
1942-2018 https://t.co/h8uWznhEpb pic.twitter.com/RVeQx2BTxP— Cambridge University (@Cambridge_Uni) March 14, 2018
Remembering Stephen Hawking, a renowned physicist and ambassador of science. His theories unlocked a universe of possibilities that we & the world are exploring. May you keep flying like superman in microgravity, as you said to astronauts on @Space_Station in 2014 pic.twitter.com/FeR4fd2zZ5
— NASA (@NASA) March 14, 2018
"Few, if any, have done more to deepen our knowledge of gravity, space, and time." https://t.co/C0s8n7Yidu
— National Geographic (@NatGeo) March 14, 2018