Re: OT RIP Steven Hawking

He was a genuinely amazing guy. Also a cautionary tale about how badly you can go wrong when everybody around you tells you how amazing you are. :(

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

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I'm not sure what Phil is talking about. (I've never read Hawking's book.) But Susskind's physics lectures on Black hole thermodynamics are a treat to watch. (if you're into that kind of thing.)

George H.

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He made a couple of bets on a couple of bizarre astrophysiscal propositions , and ended up losing - and paying up.

I doubt if he was flattered into expressing the opinions, and backing your own judgement with the kind of bet that you don't mind losing is the kind o f attention-getting gesture that goes with the fact that prominent scientis ts are in the business of entertaining their colleagues (as well as edifyin g them).

I did read Hawking's book. I've read popular physics books that I've liked better, but it was fine as far as it went.

I like Govert Schilling's "Ripples in Space Time" a whole lot more

Did you ever read this one by Lee Smolin, "Time Reborn":

He seems to be a fan of "shape dynamics", reformulating GR to make time the invariant rather than the speed of light, apparently there are reformulations of GR where that assumption produces a set of equations consistent with the predictions of speed-of-light-invariant GR.

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ions, and ended up losing - and paying up.

our own judgement with the kind of bet that you don't mind losing is the ki nd of attention-getting gesture that goes with the fact that prominent scie ntists are in the business of entertaining their colleagues (as well as edi fying them).

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ked better, but it was fine as far as it went.

Not me. I did find a review (I kinda trust) here.

If you read the comments you can find some answers/ comments from Lee Smolin himself.

George H.

I agree, Hawking was quite stunning in his mathematical abilities. I don't see that many can really appreciate his standard without actually trying some of it.

I used to piss about doing 3 basic GR problems taking a whole weekend,

e.g.

Hawking would this entirely in his head in about 30 secs, I would say.

The however, is that, imo, it is doubtful if anything Hawking did had any direct relevance to the real, practical world. Radiating black holes, is just not that useful. I am of the view though, that indirectly, he made a significant contribution. Just knowing that someone with such a disability can achieve so much, must surely have motivated many to pursue science and engineering. For myself, I have a satisfaction that I have a much deeper understanding of how we may have arrived here, that I might not have had if it were not for those like Hawking popularising such subjects.

Kevin Aylward

There are/were plenty of "pure" mathematicians/physicists who would probably take great offense if anyone were to suggest their work had some kind of lame "practical" value. Gross, how pedestrian.

e.g. G.H. Hardy was that type with respect to number theory

Along the lines of "I'm an _artist_, not some fashion of grunting engineer thinking about how to make better microwave ovens"

Phil Hobbs wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@supernews.com:

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Stephen said that after he was diagnosed at 21 years of age, he gave up all expectations, and everything since then has been a bonus.

It certainly was quite a bonus for all of us.

So many people with a disability that prevents them doing a 9-5 just give up. Hawking did a great job of showing the world that giving up is optional.

NT