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Curiosities about Stephen Hawking

Who has not heard of Stephen Hawking ? This genius of physics, an example of improvement, which managed to bring its complex physical concepts to the public making them accessible.He had a very interesting life, full of curious data that little by little we will present.

Did you know that Stephen Hawking got bad grades at school? Or that he was born on the 300th anniversary of Galileo's death? In this article we will review some of the curiosities about Stephen Hawking most peculiar, both of his academic life and his stage being already a renowned physicist

Curiosities about Stephen Hawking.Academic life

1.I got bad grades at school

Let's start with our curiosities about Stephen Hawking: In his time At school, Stephen Hawking got very bad grades, although he was very interested in knowing how things worked and his teachers seemed to understand that they had a future genius among them.Despite his bad grades, Hawking got a scholarship to the University of Oxford, with an almost perfect grade in the physics exam.

2.He didn't like biology

Stephen Hawking became fond of mathematics from an early age, but his father wanted him to study medicine.But, despite his interest in science, Stephen Hawking did not like biology at all.too inaccurate and descriptive, and he wanted to devote his mind to more precise and well-defined concepts.

At the University of Oxford it was found that the subject of mathematics was not one of the main , so he decided to study physics.

Curiosities about Stephen Hawking

Stephen Hawking as a child and as a youth

In fact, even within physics, he focused on the most important questions.When we face deciding between the two clues of the physics of particles, which studies the behavior of subatomic particles, versus cosmology, which studies the large universe as a whole, Hawking chose the second.He chose cosmology despite the fact that, at that time, it was barely recognized as a field legitimate.

Explaining why, he said that particle physics «seemed botanic.He had all these particles, but no theory».

3.In Oxford He was part of the rowing team

This is one of those curiosities about Stephen Hawking that few know, because he was not used to relate to the sport.First year at Oxford, Hawking faced isolation and unhappiness.It seems that joining the rowing team helped him overcome it.Hawking was not a great athlete at the time.However, the teams recruited smaller men such as the helmsman, a position that does not row, but controls the direction and speed of the race.

Because rowing was so important and competitive in Oxford, Hawking's role in the team made it very popular.But training began to affect his study habits, so he started taking" serious shortcuts " and use what he calls “creative analysis to create laboratory reports”.

Curiosities about Stephen Hawking

Stephen Hawking experiencing the sensations of a zero gravity flight

4.At 21 he was diagnosed with ALS and given a few years of life

Already graduated, Hawking began to show signs of difficulties in walking and general awkwardness.His family began to worry during a Christmas vacation and ins Istio to visit a doctor.Before seeing a specialist, however, he attended a New Year's party, where he met his future wife, Jane Wilde.She remembers being attracted to her "sense of humor and independent personality."

The following week Hawking turned 21, and shortly after he was admitted to the hospital, where he was tested for two weeks to find out what happened to him.Subsequently, he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, which is a neurological disease that causes the patients lose control of their voluntary muscles.The doctors told him that he would probably have a few years to live.

Hawking remembered that he was shocked and wondered why this had happened to him However, seeing a child die of leukemia in the hospital made him realize that there were other people in a worse situation than him.And, showing great optimism, Hawking began dating Jane.

Curiosities about Stephen Hawking.Renowned physicist

After being diagnosed with ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis) at 21 years of age, Stephen Hawking looked with optimism at the future.did not prevent him from becoming one of the most important scientists of the last decades.

Then we will continue with the curiosities about Stephen Hawking , reviewing some surprising data of his career and his research.

5.I help create the theory of the universe without limitation tes

One of Hawking's greatest achievements, which he shares with Jim Hartle, was to arrive in 1983 at the theory that the universe has no limits .Understanding the nature and shape of the universe, Hawking and Hartle combine the concepts of quantum mechanics (the study of the behavior of microscopic particles) with general relativity (Einstein's theories about gravity and how mass curves space) to show that the universe is a contained entity and yet has no boundaries.

To conceptualize this, he tells people to think of the universe as the surface of the Earth.a sphere, you can go in any direction of the Earth's surface and never reach a corner, an edge or any border where the Earth can be said to have an end.However, an important difference is that the surface of the Earth is two-dimensional (although the Earth itself is three-dimensional l, the surface is only two-dimensional), while the universe is four-dimensional.

Hawking explained that spacetime is like the latitude lines on the globe.at the North Pole (the beginning of the universe) and to the south, the circumferences become larger, even beyond the equator, when they get smaller.This means that the universe is finite in space-time and finally it would collapse (although at least 20 billion years are missing for that.

6.I lost a bet on black holes

One of the curiosities about Stephen Hawking who also show part of his personality: his ability to rectify.

In 2004, Stephen Hawking admitted that he was wrong and admitted having lost a bet he made in 1997 with a scientific colleague about the black holes .To understand the bet, let's first review what the holes are blacks.

The stars are gigantic ; they have so much mass that their gravity is incredibly strong.While the star is burning its core fuel there are no problems, because the energy it generates outwards counteracts that gravity.However, when it stars large enough "Dies" or burns, gravity becomes the strongest force, and causes that great star to collapse on itself.This creates what scientists call a black hole.

Curiosities about Stephen Hawking

Gravity is so powerful in this collapse that not even light can escape.However, Hawking proposed in 1975 that black holes are not really black, but rather radiate energy.

At the time, Hawking said the information was lost in the black hole and finally evaporated.The problem was that this idea that the information was lost day came into conflict with the rules of quantum physics, creating what Hawking called an "information paradox" or "black hole paradox."

The American theoretical physicist John Preskill did not agree with the conclusion that the information was lost in the black hole and in 1997, he made a bet with Hawking saying that the information could escape them and therefore, the laws of quantum physics were not broken.

In 2004, Hawking admitted that he was wrong at a conference in a congress He said that, because black holes have more than one "topology," and when one measures all the information released from all topologies, the information is not lost.

7.He received numerous awards and distinctions

In his long career in physics, Hawking accumulated an incredible variety of awards and distinctions .Among them are the following:

  • In 1974 he was included in the Royal Society (the Royal Academy of Science in the United Kingdom, dating from 1660), and a year later, Pope Paul VI granted him the XI Gold Medal of Science.He also received the Albert Einstein Prize and the Hughes Medal of the Royal Society.

  • In 1979 he was awarded the Professor of Matema ticas at the University of Cambridge (England), a position he would hold for the next 30 years.

  • In the 1980s, he was invested as Commander of the British Empire, which is a rank in the United Kingdom that means little less than being a gentleman.He also joined the Companion of Honor, which is another distinction awarded in national recognition for the services provided.There can be no more of 65 members in the order at once.

  • In 2009, Hawking was awarded the highest civil honor in the United States, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

But, although Stephen Hawking reached 12 honorary titles, however, the Nobel Prize was not granted, at least in life.

What do you think about these curiosities about Stephen Hawking ?

Image: Intel Free Press

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