Stephen Hawking
Stephen Hawking
Stephen William Hawking, CH, CBE, FRS, FRSAis an English theoretical physicist, cosmologist, author and Director of Research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology within the University of Cambridge. His scientific works include a collaboration with Roger Penrose on gravitational singularity theorems in the framework of general relativity, and the theoretical prediction that black holes emit radiation, often called Hawking radiation. Hawking was the first to set forth a theory of cosmology explained by a union of the general theory of...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth8 January 1942
CityOxford, England
Stephen Hawking quotes about
I hope I have helped to raise the profile of science and to show that physics is not a mystery but can be understood by ordinary people.
As Irving Good realised in 1965, machines with superhuman intelligence could repeatedly improve their design even further, triggering what Vernor Vinge called a 'singularity.'
I don't care much for equations myself. This is partly because it is difficult for me to write them down, but mainly because I don't have an intuitive feeling for equations.
I was born on January 8, 1942, exactly three hundred years after the death of Galileo. I estimate, however, that about two hundred thousand other babies were also born that day. I don't know whether any of them was later interested in astronomy.
I entered the health care debate in response to a statement in the United States press in summer 2009 which claimed the National Health Service in Great Britain would have killed me off, were I a British citizen. I felt compelled to make a statement to explain the error.
We are the product of quantum fluctuations in the very early universe.
If we want to travel into the future, we just need to go fast. Really fast. And I think the only way we're ever likely to do that is by going into space.
We think that life develops spontaneously on Earth, so it must be possible for life to develop on suitable planets elsewhere in the universe. But we don't know the probability that a planet develops life.
Imaginary time is a new dimension, at right angles to ordinary, real time.
I first had the idea of writing a popular book about the universe in 1982. My intention was partly to earn money to pay my daughter's school fees.
I had not expected 'A Brief History of Time' to be a best seller. It was my first popular book and aroused a great deal of interest. Initially, many people found it difficult to understand. I therefore decided to try to write a new version that would be easier to follow.
I grew up thinking that a research scientist was a natural thing to be.
Most people don't have time to master the very mathematical details of theoretical physics.
Before 1915, space and time were thought of as a fixed arena in which events took place, but which was not affected by what happened in it. Space and time are now dynamic quantities... space and time not only affect but are also affected by everything that happens in the universe.