Meet the man who gave a new definition to the universe, a cosmologist, a passionate physicist, and a genius who was born to mesmerize the world with his voracious intellect. Stephen William Hawking was one of the world’s greatest theoretical physicists and an indispensable asset in the field of cosmology and particle physics.
A Legend is born
Stephen Hawking was born on 8th January 1942 to a relatively well to do family in Oxford, England. In his initial years, he was not academically successful but eventually showed excellence in scientific subjects and mathematics. He was also known as Einstein during his school days. He studied at Oxford university college, which was an utter cakewalk for him as he found most subjects ridiculously easy. However, he went into depression when he was diagnosed with motor neuron disease, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), during his graduate years, and doctors gave him only two years to live. Despite this severe blow in his life that rendered him speech impaired and physically challenged, Hawking cheated death and soared to great heights with his thoughts pervading in every young astrophysicist well past his demise.
New Beginnings
Hawking came to Cambridge to study with one of the world’s famous cosmologists back in the 1960s, Sir Fred Hoyle.
Hoyle strongly believed in the steady-state theory, which inferred that the universe has no beginning or end. This theory stated that matter would continuously be created as the universe expands, in utter disagreement with the big bang notion of an indefinitely dense initial state. The steady-state theory was widely accepted among the most renowned astrophysicists at that time.
Young Hawking was eager to flex his neurons and genius intellect; he called his doctoral thesis properties of expanding universes. During his first months at Cambridge, he was interested in Narlikar’s calculations and began hanging around his office opening discussions and sharing ideas. He became more engrossed with Narlikar’s difficulties with the project Hoyle assigned.
In a talk at the prestigious royal society, Hoyle discussed the latest ideas based on Narlikar’s calculations. After his speech, he asked the crowd whether they had any questions, flaunting his appreciation with a sheepish grin filled with pride. Much to his dismay, Hawking stood up and said, “the quality you talk about diverges.” Filled with ego, Hoyle says, “How do you know?” Hawking replies, “Because I worked it out.” Hawking goes on to showcase his paper summarizing mathematical methods he had used and proved the divergence of Hoyle’s equations.
Hoyle was furious as an embarrassed laugh passed through the audience. He had his work refereed openly by an unknown post-graduate student.
Limitless Intellect
One of the Oxford tutors supervising Hawking’s work in statistical physics assigned several problems from a textbook. Only to be greeted with a list of mistakes in the textbook marked clearly with a valid explanation. His mind knew no bounds as he harnessed extreme intellect that enabled him to decipher even the most complex calculations and postulates into simple yet understandable concepts.
As Hawking was nearing his end of term at Oxford, he met with a terrible fall in the staircase due to the beginning effect of ALS, which resulted in a temporary memory loss. However, even ALS stood no match, as Hawking passed with flying colours!
A New Perspective of the Universe
Albert Einstein predicted the existence of black holes through his theory of relativity. Black holes stemmed from massive stars that collapsed. However, this black hole theory was not well understood by scientists due to the lack of exploration and complex nature of the concept.
Hawking took it a step further and notched it down for easier understanding. He christened a new definition to the black hole theory that established the existence of black holes as reality and not just a theory that could be debunked. With his remarkable brain, he proved certain rigorous mathematical theorems of Einstein’s equations for gravity. Under general circumstances, he showed that there were places where equations broke down and coined them singularities. The region inside a black hole, in which even light cannot escape, is known as a singularity.
Yes, Black holes Shrink, Hawking Radiation
In his initial research, Hawking was of the strong impression that the size of a black hole remains constant and never changes. However, after some vigorous research and rethinking, he proved that black holes could shrink as they radiate energy, thereby reducing mass. This energy that radiates is known as Hawking radiation.
Hawking theorized that this radiation from virtual particles was constantly popping into and out of existence in the bizarre quantum realm. This happens in matter-anti-matter pairs, where one has positive energy and the other with a negative. Hawking also emphasized that black holes have tendencies of evaporating or boiling themselves away in a brilliant burst of energy equal to a million 1 megaton hydrogen bombs, astounding, isn’t it?
Gracefully Dealing with Criticism
A successful person is always prone to criticism; Stephen Hawking was not new to that. He faced criticism from other scientists who coined the black hole information paradox. This paradox was a puzzle with the combination of quantum mechanics and general relativity.
Hawking proved that once a star dies, all its mass would collapse into a single point of infinite density that results in a singularity. The information paradox stated that once the black hole collapsed, all information is lost, thereby violating the principle of quantum physics that information cannot be destroyed as it stays constant. Hawking debunked the paradox with his witty argument that information is not lost but is encoded in particles emitted by the radiation.
Hawking’s contributions to physics are a force to be reckoned with. His level of intellect was beyond comprehension and blew the minds of renowned cosmologists and scientists. He established a strong foundation for scientists in the future by bridging several gaps in quantum cosmology, black holes, thermodynamics, and various riddles in the universe. His contributions would pave the way for future research and reshape our understanding of the universe.
Space Age 