From p>1979 to 29, he served as Lucas Professor of Mathematics, which was the highest professorship in Britain. Hawking's main research fields are cosmology and black holes. He has proved the singularity theorem of general relativity and the black hole area theorem, and put forward the evaporation phenomenon of black holes and the borderless Hawking universe model, which has taken an important step in unifying the two basic theories of physics in the 2th century-relativity founded by Einstein and quantum mechanics founded by Planck.
people's evaluation
stephen william hawking is one of the great men with international reputation in this century. He was born on the 3th anniversary of Galileo's death. He is a professor in the Department of Mathematics and Theoretical Physics of Cambridge University and the most important contemporary general relativity and cosmologist. Lucas Chair in Mathematics, Cambridge University, UK, which is the highest honor chair in the history of natural science after Newton and Dirac.
In 197s, he and Penrose proved the famous singularity theorem, for which they both won the Wolf Prize in Physics in 1988. He is therefore known as the most famous scientific thinker and the most outstanding theoretical physicist in the world after Einstein.
Hawking's life is very legendary, and he is one of the most outstanding scientists in history in terms of scientific achievements. His position is the most lofty professorship in the history of Cambridge University, and that is Lucas Professor of Mathematics who was once held by Newton and Dirac.
Hawking's achievements can be summarized as follows:
First, the singularity theorem. Einstein's general theory of relativity is recognized by the scientific community as the most beautiful scientific theory. But together with Penrose, Hawking proved that general relativity is incomplete. They pointed out that if the general theory of relativity is universally valid and the distribution of matter in the universe meets very general conditions, then there must be some singularities in the space-time of the universe. The laws of classical physics fail at the singularity. The singularities that people usually talk about are the big bang singularity at the beginning of the universe and the singularity in the black hole. Einstein denied the existence of singularities earlier, and he even wrote a paper to demonstrate the impossibility of black holes (there was no such vivid name at that time). The singularity theorems of Hawking and Penrose show that the quantization of gravity is inevitable.
second, black hole theory. It is known that in the framework of classical gravity theory, black holes can only swallow matter, but can't spit it out. The surface (horizon) of a black hole is like the entrance to hell, and it is a one-way film with no return. Hawking once proved that the area of the horizon is non-decreasing. In 1974, Hawking published "Is a Black Hole Exploding? The article ". This is the greatest paper on gravitational physics in the 2th century after Einstein. In this paper, he introduced the quantum theory effect into the study of black holes, and proved that all kinds of particles will evaporate from the vicinity of the black hole horizon, and the spectrum of such particles is like radiation from a black body. As the mass of the black hole decreases, the temperature will increase, which will eventually lead to the explosion of the black hole. In this scene called Hawking radiation, quantum theory, gravitational theory and statistical physics are perfectly unified. Black hole theory is a very rare example in the history of science. It was first studied in detail in mathematical form, and then its universality was confirmed in many astronomical observations. Now, people's understanding is that the center of each galaxy is an extremely huge black hole.
Third, the boundlessness universe theory. Hawking founded the borderless theory of quantum cosmology in the early 198s. He believes that time and space are finite and unbounded, and the universe is not only self-consistent, but also self-sufficient. It does not need God's first push at the beginning of the universe. The evolution and even creation of the universe are determined by the laws of physics alone. In this way, god is completely excluded from the things in the universe. God becomes an idle "creator", and it is no longer able to create miracles. The myth about "the first push" that Aristotle, Augustine, Newton and others once invented for God in the universe is completely illusory. One of the main predictions of quantum cosmology is about the origin of the cosmic structure. Several years ago, the observations of cosmic background radiation detectors on the fluctuation of space background temperature confirmed this prediction.
For singularity theorem, black hole area theorem, Hawking radiation of black hole and boundlessness universe theory, one's achievement before his death is enough to be immortal. Hawking has all these theories.