Bright star passes
Scientists in New Zealand and across the globe have paid tribute to renowned physicist Stephen Hawking and his impact on the scientific community and universe.
The British theoretical physicist – who overcame a devastating neurological disease to probe the greatest mysteries of the cosmos – died yesterday aged 76.
Canterbury Distinguished Professor Roy Kerr, who first met a 25-year-old Hawking, recalled him having ‘‘incredible strength of spirit and character’’.
Kerr remembered the young Hawking had difficulty walking, having been diagnosed with the degenerative motor neurone disease in 1963 when he was 21 years old.
Initially given two years to live, a diagnosis that threw him into a profound depression, Hawking found the strength to complete his doctorate and rise to the position of Lucasian professor of mathematics at the University of Cambridge, the same post held by Isaac Newton 300 years earlier.
Before his death, Hawking was unable to move and speechless but for a computer synthesised voice.
‘‘Fifty years later, he was still working with help and retained his quirky sense of humour,’’ Kerr said. ‘‘My wife and I had dinner with him at his home in May last year and came away marvelling at his sheer positivity. He was never a victim,’’ Kerr said.
Professor Hawking’s most notable contribution to science was the conjecture that black holes evaporate, said Kerr, who was a Professor of Mathematics at the University of Canterbury for 22 years.
‘‘The world will miss Stephen Hawking and I am very sad to hear of his passing.’’
Victoria University school of mathematics and statistics Professor Matt Visser said Hawking would be missed by the broader scientific community. ‘‘Hawking was an incredibly gifted theoretical physicist,’’ he said.
Professor Hawking became one of the world’s most renowned scientists. He embraced the attention, travelling the world, meeting presidents, visiting Antarctica and Easter Island, and flying on special ‘‘zero-gravity’’ jet whose parabolic flight let Hawking float through the cabin as if he were in space.
He spent much of his career searching for a way to reconcile Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity with quantum physics and produce a ‘‘Theory of Everything’’. He wrote an international best seller, A Brief History of Time (1988), which delved into the origin and ultimate fate of the universe.
Although the book was sometimes derided as being dense, and had a reputation for being owned more than read, it sold millions of copies, was translated into more than 20 languages, and inspired a miniempire of similar books from Hawking, including The Universe in a Nutshell and A Briefer History of Time.
With his daughter, Lucy, he wrote a series of children’s books about a young intergalactic traveller named George.
His blunt 2013 memoir, My Brief History, explored his development in science as well as his marriages to Jane Hawking and Elaine Mason.
With the aid of a voice synthesiser, controlled by his fingers on a keyboard, he gave speeches around the world, from Chile to China.
He played himself on such TV programmes as Star Trek and The Simpsons.
His scientific achievements included breakthroughs in understanding the extreme conditions of black holes, objects so dense that not even light can escape their gravity.
His most famous theoretical breakthrough was to find an exception to this law of physics: black holes are not really black, he realised, but rather can emanate thermal radiation from subatomic processes at their boundary, and can potentially evaporate. Scientists refer to such theoretical emanations as ‘‘Hawking radiation’’.
‘‘Black holes ain’t as black as they are painted,’’ Hawking once said in a lecture, characteristically describing complicated physics in ordinary language.
‘‘They are not the eternal prisons once thought. Things can get out of a black hole, both to the outside, and possibly, to another universe. So, if you feel you are in a black hole, don’t give up. There’s a way out.’’
Prominent astronomer Wendy Freedman, director of the Carnegie Observatories, said: ‘‘He’s become an icon for a mind that is beyond ordinary mortals.’’
At the remarkably young age of 32, Hawking was named a fellow of the Royal Society.
He received the Albert Einstein Award, the most prestigious in theoretical physics.
He joined the Cambridge faculty in 1973 as a research assistant in the department of applied mathematics and theoretical physics; he was promoted to professor of gravitational physics in 1977.
In an updated, illustrated version of A Brief History of Time, he added a chapter on wormholes – back-alley cosmic tunnels that might conceivably let someone travel back in time.
Hawking said our universe might not be the only one there is – that many more may be popping into existence all around us.
‘‘The world will miss Stephen Hawking . . .’’ Canterbury Distinguished Professor Roy Kerr