Comments on: Happy Birthday, Stephen Hawking

By: Happy Birthday, Stephen Hawking « science-society.com

Happy Birthday, Stephen Hawking « science-society.com — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 14:38:45 +0000

[...] To Read More… [...]

By: Brathmore

Brathmore — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 16:08:01 +0000

Given the importance of his work, why hasn’t Hawking been awarded a Nobel Prize yet? What could the prize committee be thinking?

By: Aos Ombros de Gigantes « Mar de Dirac

Aos Ombros de Gigantes « Mar de Dirac — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 23:12:38 +0000

[...] título do livro é Aos Ombros dos Gigantes). O livro é coligido e comentado por Stephen Hawking (que recentemente completou 70 anos) e pretende ser uma colecta de textos de Física e Astronomia que não só revolucionaram as [...]

By: david a

david a — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 22:42:08 +0000

Happy Birthday Stephen…
You are most likely my favorite person. The fact that you have kept going all these years with your disease is admirable. I have read everything you have writtenand would love to meet you and get your autograph n one of your books.

By: Jimbo

Jimbo — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 05:11:39 +0000

Hawking’s professional tension w/Peter Higgs is well known, but now that 3-sigma evidence is in favor of the Higgs, I think Stephen should show a little humility, admit he was wrong, & not wait on 5-sigma vindication, inevitably forthcoming.
Since no bet was made (to my knowledge), he should send Peter a hearty note of congrats.

By: Cosmonut

Cosmonut — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 03:13:39 +0000

Hawking IS very overrated by the media – I don’t think any physicist considers his contribution to be comparable to Newton or Einstein to whom he is routinely compared – or even Feynman.

What reduces my respect for the man is that a lot of the media hype is due to his own self promotion with grandiose statements like “My goal is complete understanding of the universe, why it is the way it is, and why it exists at all”, starry-eyed claims about how we are about the understand the “mind of God” and so on.

Anyway, given Hawking’s predilection for bets – my own bet is that he won’t discover the unified theory and all his quantum cosmology hocus-pocus will turn out to be completely wrong.
(I am referring to all the stuff about the no-boundary universe with ‘imaginary time’ being real and the ideas which followed it. The singularity theorems and black-hole radiation work will surely endure)

By: Raphael Boozer

Raphael Boozer — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 01:17:53 +0000

Sean, if you had accepted either of those postdocs you would be a full prof at Berkeley now. True, you would have had to work on laughable borderline crackpottery, but there ain’t no free lunch after all…..

By: CRF Blog » Blog Archive » Stephen Hawking’s Birthday

CRF Blog » Blog Archive » Stephen Hawking’s Birthday — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 19:27:29 +0000

[...] birthday of the great physicist Stephen Hawking. Sean Carroll, a researcher at Cal Tech, tells an amusing story of the first time he met Hawking. Cambridge is one of the world’s best places to do theoretical [...]

By: lawrence mwangi

lawrence mwangi — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 22:51:30 +0000

Happy Birthday Stephen Hawking!! We love you not because of your academic achievements though your a freaking genious but COURAGE without being able to walk write and talk without help of machine, finding opposition in your work especially from people who don’t have Science or how it really works

Thanks Sean for the post

By: Lonely Flower

Lonely Flower — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 21:13:10 +0000

My story with him ; he was once one of my facebook friends:)

By: Linda Jean

Linda Jean — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 20:43:22 +0000

precisley Mr Shobe: negate Seans’ self-indulgence (nothing wrong with it!!) to engage in your own Hawking indulgence…tsk.tsk..but really really funny thank you!

By: J Shobe

J Shobe — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 19:33:11 +0000

Sean, I loved the story. No self-indulgence noticed here. I bought my mother one of Stephen’s books on CD simply because I felt he could reach and intrigue her with his often repeated/copied walks through the history of physics at the start of his books. His genuine excitement and playfulness with his topics is contageous, and I just love that he can get this across despite his handicaps. If I had a Hawking encounter I would surely tell it here, and thank you for telling yours – I don’t, with the exception that I wrote him to take care and be careful if he truly plans to take a near zero-gravity flight. His assistant wrote back thanking me for my concern, but that he would be well taken care of. Happy 70th Birthday Mr. Hawking.

By: Linda Jean

Linda Jean — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 15:31:03 +0000

Not being facetious, but this kind of self-indulgent story can be turned around by the Dark forces: your Nobel prize office mate answered a phone call by Hawking?

By: James

James — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 12:27:12 +0000

For what it’s worth, I think Hawking is overrated – but by the media and general public, not by fellow scientists (eg. Sunday Times apparently believe he is “considered the greatest living scientist by his peers” according to @3 cormac).
The unfortunate side effect of this is you sometimes meet physicists who can be quite dismissive of him as a kind of adverse reaction to the fulsome praise he gets. This is unfair – he may not be the next Einstein (as a lot of people seem to believe) and there may be many other physicists as deserving of praise, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t been hugely important and influential in his own right.

By: James

James — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 12:20:42 +0000

My own Hawking story consists solely of almost being run over by him as he flew through the DAMTP in his wheelchair – but by all accounts, that’s an experience common to almost anyone who’s spent enough time in Cambridge. He is apparently not a man to take things slow. I too wish him a happy birthday..

By: Dan Prall

Dan Prall — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 05:07:09 +0000

And he’s done voices on both The Simpsons and Futurama! Immortality guaranteed. Happy Birthday…

By: lg2012

lg2012 — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 02:10:22 +0000

Happy Birthday Stephen, and have a great 2012.

By: V H Satheeshkumar

V H Satheeshkumar — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 23:57:19 +0000

Very captivating story indeed. Like most in my age group, I too was mesmerised by cosmology and gravitation through Hawking’s popular books. This later made me study physics and astronomy. There was a phase when I thought that Hawking is overrated. But I realised how wrong I was, when I started studying the nature of singularities and black hole thermodynamics in greater detail. Hawking personifies the cliché “living life to the fullest”. Happy birthday Stephen Hawking

By: Kevin Barron

Kevin Barron — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 22:35:37 +0000

Great story Sean!
My story revolves around one of the rare public lectures he gave at UCSB. My daughter brought a blind friend from her grade 8 science class, but we did not have a ticket for him and there were no more tickets. When I introduced them to Stephen and explained the situation, he graciously made sure that the boy would be able to attend.
I’m sure that Stephen has been an inspiration to many, both in terms of science and those facing adversity, but often the small, unnoticed gestures of grace make all the difference in someone’s life.

By: cormac

cormac — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 21:59:28 +0000

I wish I was at the conference.
That said, it is stated in today’s Sunday Times that Hawking is ‘considered the greatest living scientist by his peers’. How does the ST know this? I doubt if the statement is true, despite Hawking’s great achievements, though I don’t know how one could test the hypothesis. I think such icons play a vital role in the romotion of science, but I wonder is there a certain amount of media feeding on itself here, as journalists equate best-known with best…