End of Perspicacious thinking – “THE STEPHEN HAWKING”

Lives in the universe (1996); The beginning of time (1996); Does God play dice (1999); Space and Time Warps (1999); Godel and the End of Physics (2002); The Origin of the Universe (2005); Into a Black Hole (2008) – all are the collection of Professor Hawking’s public lectures. 14^th March, 2018 – the day marks the death of an inspiration and a great rational scientist none other than “THE STEPHEN HAWKING”. The man behind “The Brief History of Time”, on this day died peacefully at his home. Here is a journey and his major contributions to the world which shall be lived for many years.

ABOUT HAWKING

The renowned physicist and ambassador of science was born on January 8, 1942 in Oxford, England. The most astonishing part of his life is that Hawking wished to pursue mathematics but as University College did not offer this subject, so he decided to take physics. At the age of 11, he was awarded his first class honors degree in natural science. In 1962, he did his research in cosmology. By the year 1965, he completed his PhD with his thesis named “Properties of Expanded Universe”. At Gonville and Caius College, he first became a research canvasser and later on a fellow for Distinction in Science, by the year 1969. As a research assistant in 1973, he published his first academic book – “The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time”.

During 1974, he was elected as a member of the Royal Society and Sherman Fairchild Distinguished Scholar at California Institute of Technology. 1975, he became a reader in Gravitational Physics at DAMPT and in his career progression lead to a professor of gravitational physics in 1977. He also held the post of Lucasian Professor of Mathematics for a period from 1979- 2009. The man who sought to explain some of the most convoluted questions in life, with Roger Penrose showed that Einstein’s general theory of relativity oblique space and time would have a commencement in the Big Bang theory and closing stages in Black holes.

HIS PUBLICATIONS

From the Properties to expanding universe and many more, here are few of his major works:

• ·         Occurrence of singularities in open universes.
• ·         On the Hoyle-Narlikar theory of gravitation.
• ·         Singularities and the geometry of space-time. 
• ·         Helium production in anisotropic big bang universes.
• ·         Perturbations of an expanding universe. 
• ·         The occurrence of singularities in cosmology. III. Causality and singularities. 
• ·         The Singularities of gravitational collapse and cosmology. 
• ·         Gravitational radiation from colliding black holes. 
• ·         Energy and angular momentum flow into a black hole.
• ·         Euclidean Quantum Gravity.
• ·         The Propagation of Particles in Space-time Foam.
• ·         Yang-mills Instantons and the S Matrix.
• ·         Interacting Quantum Fields around a Black Hole.
• ·         The Development of Irregularities in a Single Bubble Inflationary Universe.
• ·         Euclidean Approach to the Inflationary Universe. 
• ·         Nontrivial Topologies in Quantum Gravity.
• ·         Wormholes and non simply connected manifolds.
• ·         Super symmetric Bianchi models and the square root of the Wheeler-DeWitt equation.
• ·         Evaporation of cosmological black holes.
• ·         The Conformal BMS Group.
• ·         A Smooth Exit from Eternal Inflation.

BOOKS

• ·         My Brief History
• ·         The Grand Design
• ·         A Brief History Of Time
• ·         A Briefer History Of Time
• ·         Black Holes : The Reith Lectures
• ·         George and the Blue Moon
• ·         George’s Cosmic Treasure Hunt
• ·         George and The Unbreakable Code
• ·         George and The Big Bang
• ·         George’s Secret Key to the Universe
• ·         The Universe in the Nutshell
• ·         Black holes and Baby Universes
• ·         On the shoulders of giants
• ·         God created the Integers

RECOGNITION EARNED BY HIM

As said by him, “Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious and however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at.”In spite of diagnosed by Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, Stephen made his mark on this world by his work.  In 1966 he won the Adams Prize for his essay 'Singularities and the Geometry of Space-time'. He achieved in 1975 – The Eddington Medal, 1976 - Hughes Medal and Dannie Heinemann Prize for Mathematical Physics, 1978-79 – The Albert Einstein Award, 1985- Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society, 1987- Dirac Medal of the Institute of Physics, 1988 – The Wolf Prize in Physics, 1989 - Prince of Asturias Award for Concord, 2006 – Copley Medal, 2008 – Fonseca Prize, 2009 – Presidential Medal Of Freedom and 2013 - Special Fundamental Physics Prize.

One cannot summarize all his contributions but whatever we get to learn from him is more than a small quotient. Truly he was one of the greatest thinkers and he inspired by his courage as well as his words. Not only his work but his wit and humor were also the reasons, we will remember him. Rest in Peace legend.