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RIP Stephen Hawking


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7 minutes ago, Yukle said:

Stephen Hawking muse a few times that it's possible that his disability was the stimulus for much of his genius, rather than an inhibition to it. He said that being paralysed gave him much more time to think. He also suggested that thinking he was about to die in a few years spurred him to achieve as much as he could in (what he thought was) the little time he had left.

Interesting.

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On 3/14/2018 at 0:57 PM, Maltaran said:

Just saw on Twitter - he was born on the anniversary of Galileo's death, and died on Einstein's birthday.

Yep, and as another noted, it was Pi Day too. All things considered is quite poetic. 

1 hour ago, Yukle said:

Stephen Hawking muse a few times that it's possible that his disability was the stimulus for much of his genius, rather than an inhibition to it. He said that being paralysed gave him much more time to think. He also suggested that thinking he was about to die in a few years spurred him to achieve as much as he could in (what he thought was) the little time he had left.

Yup. I just listened to a podcast about his life with people who knew him well, and this was brought up. On top of what you wrote, he also believed that having to do his equations in his head sharpened his mathematical skills in a way that likely wouldn't have happened had he not suffered from ALS.

I also realized that I've really missing out by not having read his book, "A Brief History Of Time." I'll be making sure to add that to my list once I clear out my current queue. 

R.I.P. Dr. Hawking! 

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On 14.3.2018 at 3:30 PM, Free Northman Reborn said:

RIP.

Like most, I knew of him by reputation only. For those who are more familiar with his comparative achievements, can you give some insight into his true stature as a scientist first and foremost? Was his renown partly linked to the challenges he had to overcome, thus making his achievements extraordinary for someone with his disabilities? Or were his achievements extraordinary in their own right, warranting the popular title of "greatest physicist alive", as he was frequently described in general conversation?

He was very good in his field but he never was something like "the greatest physicist alive". He never got the Nobel Prize (because the stuff he did is mostly too far removed from experiment and observation and the Nobel comittee usually wants some experimental evidence for theoretical speculations before it hands out prizes, Peter Higgs was lucky to have lived long enough) but I'd say that he ranks with typical Laureates in importance (i.e., not Higgs who had had one good idea but apparently was fairly mediocre in most of his other research). Still this obviously does not put him in the Einstein league as is claimed now by the typical popular article but into a league that contains a few hundreds of scientists of the last half century most of which are virtually unknown outside their field. Even others with some popular books like Weinberg, Penrose or Gell-Mann are not even close to being household names (and they are all probably at least as important in their achievements as Hawking).

Obviously his life and also his focus on a field like astrophysics/cosmology with its odd combination of being hugely popular among the public but inconsequential in daily life (unlike solid state physics or chemistry) and a popular book or two helped a lot.

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